The Convenient Queen
by Nightheart
Summary: With Tai's rightful king held bound in spelled slumber, Tai remains teetering on a knife-point, balanced between civil war and a very fragile peace held together by Tai's Kirin and an acting-Royal Consort. In the eleventh hour, King Gyousou awakens as Asen prepares to lead his army to war. Restoration of Royal Authority by King, Kirin and Consort is Tai's last best, hope for peace.
1. Prologue

_**In the fifty-sixth year of the Era of Vast Virtue**_

_**His Royal Majesty Gyousou Saku, by the Grace of Tentei King of Tai, remains bound within his spelled sleep as he has since his discovery fifty years before. To maintain what small semblance of order there is to be had within this kingdom, we yet continue to bide under the co-leadership of His Eminence the Tai Taiho, and her Grace, the Royal Consort. The Tai kirin lacks the fortitude to attend to the harsher affairs of State and affairs continue to be harsh indeed thus necessitating the continued guidance and management of the Royal Consort.**_

_**This Kingdom of Tai, deprived of the leadership of his most gracious majesty walks upon the knife-edge of civil war. Out of the destruction wrought upon this kingdom by the usurper, former General Asen, has come a shaky situation. In place of the rule of the king, a court led by the co-leadership of kirin and consort has arisen. The Royal Consort is appointed by the Taiho what authority is judged necessary to continue to stabilize the throne though she cannot, of course, rule outright in place of the king. Her authority to act is limited and she cannot assume certain imperial prerogatives, such as the right to appoint new officials or fire ones that are corrupt or less than useful. Thus the imperial court remains riddled with corrupt officials, though Her Grace has managed to isolate those officials over time and put them to tasks that will not harm the daily running of the kingdom. His Eminence, the Taiho, of course is against her suggestion of dropping them all down the side of the mountain. Her Grace notes (of her solution to the problem) that it is fortunate there are so very many situations in Tai that require a great delay rather than an immediate action, as it gives her leave to appoint those corrupt and useless officials to as many committees as will keep them from doing real harm. "Committees are indispensable when you don't actually want anything done," she has been known to say in private.**_

_**The Provinces under Golden Rule, as taken from their previous shuukou by the Royal Consort in the seventh year of the current era, are stable and continue to prosper. The Ministry of Winter reports that in every aspect of living, from economy to employment, the people gather all of the blessings of stability and prosperity that the Taiho and Royal Consort are able to provide. The Northern Provinces, under the rule of the rebellious shuukou appointed by the usurper, continue to exceed their mandated allotments of Provincial Troops. The shuukou continue to augment their increases in troop size by selling the gems produced by the mines overseas and since the army cannot be taxed they elude paying as much as thirteen percent of the tax revenue owed the crown. Her Grace has had some success in limiting the size of the troop movements by cutting off all official gem trade to the other kingdoms and relying on the other marketable goods to augment the needed income of Tai.**_

_**Trade in some of the newer products Her Grace has found or created new foreign markets for has encouraged a growth in production and industry in the southern Provinces. Tai's main has traditionally been gems but difficulties with the gem-springs persist even to this day, necessitating the exploration and cultivation of other options... options which has led to an increase in jobs due to the need for skilled labor for increased production. Those products have sold better than the Ministry of Winter had at first predicted they would. Water-silk and sap-glass, cheaper to produce than their guild-run counterparts, support a growing southern population and economy. The Ministry of Earth continues to express concern over the population-shift from the north to the job-markets and better economy available in the southern provinces under Golden Rule. To which her Grace replies that she is interested in a stable realm and not desirous that the citizens of Tai should be caught in the crossfire should those northern shuukou decide that make good on their threats and march their armies upon the capitol.**_

_**While the economies of the south improve, the Youma are still a problem and are being dealt with by bands of licensed youma slaying companies as well as the thinly-spread provincial armies. The solution His Eminence the Tai Taiho proposed for the slaying of Youma in the Twelfth Year of the current era still seems to be holding fast, for the Youma population is down, but while His majesty remains unable to assume the throne due to his current condition, the problem will never truly be able to solve itself. The Northern shuukou continue to be a pernicious threat to Her Grace's health as this chronicaler is certain that the last three assassination attempts made in this year alone were initiated on the orders of at least one of those shuukou. Her Grace is all that stands between the power-hungry lords of the north and their desire to turn the soft-hearted Taiho into their puppet to rule the kingdom through while Tai's king remains trapped in bound sleep.**_

_**Though this realm is, for the time being, stable, His Majesty is greatly missed, and not only for the fact that his presence is sure to bring about an end to this interminable series of proxy-wars waged via economic and political maneuvering. His Majesty's strength and compassion, his unwavering dedication to the health and prosperity of this kingdom, all of these are remembered by those officials who managed to last out the horrible reign of terror that general Asen performed upon the land before he was ousted by an armed confederacy of the armies of Kei En (and the remainder of Tai's forces) led by the royal Consort on the Taiho's orders in the seventh year of the Era of Vast Virtue. It is in every prayer being said by ever citizen of tai from highest to lowerst this New Year that His majesty may soon wake and restore Tai to it's full and rightful glory under the eyes of Heaven.**_

_**Chronicler of Tai.**_


	2. In Loco Imperator

**Authors Preface: This fic was actually the product of a dream I had, and the curious question on my part of "I wonder if a kingdom with a stable enough government could have a king out of action and yet Tentei would allow the kirin to live..." In short, what if matters in Tai continued as they more or less exist now, only Taiki and the other rulers found a way to stabilize the throne enough that Heaven felt no need to act. I tried to keep as true to the world canon and the tone of the novels as possible in this one so I really hope you all enjoy. Book and manga cannon both exist simultaneously, and this first chapter is the longest one in the fic. Enjoy!**

* * *

:_Intransigent, bloody __**stubborn**__ northern lords!_: Yuka thought to herself as she pulled off the shenyi of heavy silk with gold embroidery she wore to court over the back of a nearby chair for the room servants to do something with later and threw herself onto her bed in nothing but the light silk zhongyi. comfortable for perhaps the first time since she'd woken that day. The clothes she wore even under the formal robe would have been put on display in a museum or an art gallery, Yuka found them only somewhat less stifling than the normal rigamarole she was required to wear. Not for the first time she thought,

:_If I had known it was going to be like __**this**__, I would certainly not have been so eager to pick a fight with Youko over the throne of Kei!_:

That little incident was long decades in the past and her present was not something Yuka had ever seriously thought her life would be like. She was _supposed_ to be an old granny, with tons of children and grandchildren of her own, but instead she was in the rather unenviable position of having to prop the throne up from the inside. Thier prop was a jury-rigged string of contingencies, loopholes and make-do's that even now seemed like they relied more on prayers and the mercy of Heaven than actual law.

:_And how did I find myself in the center of this mess?_: she thought rhetorically with an edge of annoyed bitterness. :_Oh that's right, it turns out I have a soft spot for Kirin and signing my life away!_:

Ever since she'd had that late-night conversation with Taiki, Yuka had felt so sad for him that she simply been unable to bring herself to sit still about it. Oh _no_, she'd had to go and get herself _involved_, had to go getting close to him, and care for him (in a strictly platonic sense). When Yuka found that there was something she wanted, even if it wasn't for herself, she generally found ways of getting it done. It had been no different in that case.

:Getting Kaname over to this world was a relative cinch, since the kirin of En had been actively looking for him,: Yuka thought, reflecting about the past to herself as she carefully started to remove the fancy hairsticks from her stiff court coiffure.

:_Though compared to all the nonsense I face in the royal court every day, finding Kaname's stupid king was the easy part!_:

The shouku had stranded the two of them in the Province of Ba in Tai with little to get by on and the weather just turning from winter to spring. The winters in Tai, it turned out, were nothing to laugh at, and they extended farther into the year than she was accustomed. Still, the two of them had managed to land on their feet; Yuka had a skill in the form of proficiency with a musical instrument (and could make some small money busking for coins) Kaname had his own skill as an artist so they'd been able to travel freely from place to place. Traveling _safely_, however, had been another matter. There had been youma everywhere. The "adventures" (and by that Yuka meant life-threatening situations and dangerous alliances) they'd had in orienting on the place where the usurper to the throne had hidden the king could fill a book.

:_It's a good thing that Taiki has his magical "king-sensing" ability, or we'd have been up a creek without a paddle_,: Yuka thought.

Finding Gyousou Saku had been the easy part. Matters became a great deal more complicated _after_ the king was "rescued".

:_What good's a king that can't rule his kingdom. Damn Asen for being so clever!_:

Once they had liberated the king from where Asen had hidden him, they discovered the extent of the difficulty they faced. Asen had used a Chyoukoku, some kind of half-youma _thing_ that, much like a hinma, wrapped itself around inside of a person's body. It was actually a sort of parasite that fed on life-energy. It drained its host of all the energy needed for active functions but kept it alive in a state of coma.

:_And Chyoukoku do not possess a mortal lifespan, they are able to live as long as the host body lives. That damned clever Asen was able to see the possible advantage of this, If the host body is immortal then so would the Cyoukoku_,: Yuka thought with an inward shudder of dismay at the memory of them having received the bad news.

Conceivably, that parasite could have kept draining the king of Tai forever, keeping him alive but in a coma until Tai was consumed by ruin. To remove the thing by force had not been an option sadly, it would kill the host and _anyone connected to_ that host. While Yuka might have been just _barely_ willing to sacrifice the king in order to save the kirin (Kaname could choose another after all) killing Gyousou would have killed her friend and she had not (and would _never_ have) been willing to risk it.

:_But doing nothing woud have kept the usurper on the throne_.:

It had been a dicey situation in a lot of ways. The Royal Tai was stuck in suspended animation by a usurper who was as immortal as the man who'd granted his immortality, the only person able to revoke that immortality had been unable to do so as a result of being stuck in suspended animation. A real catch twenty-two.

:_Asen really had everyone by the short and curlies_,: Yuka though in irritated admiration for her former enemy.

Naturally, after they (they being Yuka, Kaname, Youko and her coalition of kings from other nations) had discovered Gyousou's state, they had tried everything they could think of to reverse it. At first, they'd thought that the Hekisoujo, the royal jewel of Kei that healed anything might get rid of the parasite, but it had been ineffective because it did not read the parasite as a being a wound to be healed (she supposed). They'd even hauled Gyousou's unconscious royal carcass to Mt. Hou but the Oracle of the Jasper Mists, Lady Gyoukuyou had been unable to remove the Chyoukoku from him. She had offered a _slight_ hope however... she couldn't kill it, but she could _change_ it. The powerful entity (Yuka couldn't think of someone able to work such powerful magic as being human, no matter what outside form she wore) changed the Chyoukoku feeding on Gyousou's energy so that it would have a life-cycle that resembled a butterfly. It would live inside of a host, feeding of its life energies for only so long, then it would metamorphose into something else and leave its cocoon.

:_Of course, that didn't really help us or Tai right then!_: Yuka thought in remembered frustration.

The life cycle of Choukyouku's larval state was roughly half a century. Even _with_ her powerful magic, it seemed that there was only so much Gyoukuyou could do. Tai would not last that long under Ansen's care, and Taiki could not choose a new king while his leige yet lived (and again, allowing said king to die would kill the kirin in this case). So they had done the logical thing and set up plans to retake the throne of Tai in Gyousou's name.

:_Up until that point, I'm sure that no-one had ever once dreamed of putting a kirin, a creature of benevolence and pacifism, at the head of an army, even figuratively_!:

Poor Kaname had known, even when it was brought up, that he would be physically _incapable_ of being around all of the blood and violence that would ensue in a messy re-coup like the one that the King of En knew would be necessary to reclaim Tai. So he had asked Yuka and Risai to go in his place.

:_It was to be my second time restoring a throne, I remember how foolishly eagre I was to prove myself a good and loyal friend to poor Kaname, whom fate had been so unkind to_.:

She's felt so sorry for him. Back then reaching out to other people and trying to empathize had been a bit of a new thing for her. Yuka always been something of a lone wolf, happier reading her books than interacting socially so having a real friend that she wanted to help and be there for had been something of a novelty for her.

:_Risai was all set to lead the coalition of Youko's and the Ever-King of En's forces straight into Tai and start pruning away Asen's Army_!:

However, Heaven had interceded in the most inconvenient of ways. It was against the Laws of Heaven for any king to lead his army into another kingdom, no matter how justified he or she was. The only exception was that a king could _loan_ his army to the king of another kingdom (as En had to Youko in order to depose the usurper Jyoei the first time Yuka had traveled to the Twelve Kingdoms), but that king _had_ to be in the lead.

:_Taiki was physically and spiritually incapable of going into battle so __**he **__could not lead the army, not without serious risk to himself on many levels_,: Yuka remembered. :_And the Royal Tai was out of commission!_:

At the time it had seemed like Asen's scheme had an answer for everything they might try to defeat him and that Tai was out of luck and out of time...

:_I'm still not sure that the Ever-letch did anyone any favors with his solution though_.:

The King of En had found a loophole in one of the history texts in the Royal Library at Shadowlore palace. In the early days of the Kingdom of Sou, he'd explained with a bright smile, the then-Royal Sou had been incapacitated and there had been huge civil insurrection by an embittered rival turned enemy. The army of Sou had been annihilated and it looked like the insurrection against the crown would be successful, but the Royal Sou's consort had journeyed to Kou at the behest of the Sou Taiho to beg the aid of the Royal Kou and the use of his armies. The Royal Sou' consort had consulted Heaven's will on the matter, and Heaven had decreed that her use of another army in defense of her homeland and husband was allowable in Heaven's eyes. The insurrection had been defeated and the rightful throne restored. The Royal Sou and his wife had ruled in harmony for three hundred years.

They had not, at first, seen the use of his particular example for Gyousou Saku was not married. There was no Royal Consort they could use to head the army, and they _still_ could not ask Taiki to do it since it was near-physically impossible that Taiki, the kirin of Tai, could handle being around that much bloodshed.

"Ah, but there's another loophole!" En had said with devious had felt her guard go up even then with that false disarming charm of his, as they said in the north "tender baby chicks know a weasel when they see one."

In the instances where a king might be incapacitated by injury or illness, the Taiho was the one who ran the inner palace and attended to rites. The Taiho also had the authority to manage matters in his liege's House and family. Technically, _he_ could perform the marriage rite on his kings' behalf. With the Taiho presiding, the king and his bride could undergo a proxy-marriage, essentially, there would be a stand-in.

:_To this day I still recall how every single damn royal face in that room looked down the table right at me!_: Yuka thought irritatedly.

During their search for Gyousou, and the search for a cure that ensued their discovery of his state, Yuka had proven herself time and again. She _managed_ _situations_. The girl who'd been bullied in class and shut everyone out to pursue her interest in literature had never imagined herself in a situation where she would have to handle people, but being on the outside looking in all of the time had given her a great deal of insight as to how people worked. She enjoyed intellectual games of strategy. In school she'd been able to get by with an aloof manner and an ability to keep her mouth shut, but when it came down to figuring out the intricacies of politics and personality types and the complex interweaving of alliances and advantage (and finding a way to use them to her advantage,) Yuka was a strategy player with plus fifty intelligence.

:_Now I sort of wish I hadn't proven myself quite so reliable_!: Yuka thought.

It had been decided that a person with intelligence and acumen (if not experience), proven fearlessness in battle, and a great deal of loyalty to Taiki personally was just the sort of person who would make a _perfect_ prop for the throne.

:_I still think they should have made Risai do it. She's closer to his age and had battle experience_.:

The King of En (and surprisingly, Youko, who, Yuka would have thought would have agreed with her about the inappropriateness of it) had argued that while Risai was an excellent woman and an experienced and capable general, she lacked the cunning and acumen necessary to maneuver in the political arena.

Yuka had tried to protest the appointment, naturally, but Taiki had given her that puppy-eyed look and begged her to help his king. Yuka, a sucker for kirin in general and _him_ in particular had agreed to take one for the team... or kirin. She'd sworn to him that she would help him hold his kingdom together in such a way that it would be so stable that Heaven would have no cause for complaints (or to put poor Kaname under shitsudo, more importantly).

With Kaname presiding over the rite and Youko, Rakushun, Enki and Keiki as witnesses, Yuka was married by proxy (with a pervy King of En as the royal stand-in) to Gyousou Saku and made Royal Consort to the King of Tai.

:A girl's supposed to think of her wedding day as the happiest day of her life... All I recall about mine was the impatience to get it over with so that I could go liberate a kingdom so that my friend would not die.:

Her wedding clothes had been the armor she planned to wear into battle.

Their reclaiming of the kingdom of Tai had not been _nearly_ so decisive as Youko's had been. For one thing, the usurper was better armed and a lot more savvy about military strategy. Youko's usurper had only been a cloth-merchant's daughter who was being propped on the throne by the King of Kou and his armies. Also, Jyoei had been on the throne for _maybe_ a year or two, at best. Asen was a general equal to the famous king of Tai (perhaps his superior since he had, in fact, _succeeded_ in ousting his rival from the throne). Furthermore he had had a few years to put all of his pieces into place; to purge the military of commanders loyal to the king and put his own soldiers in place, to destroy the royal court, to replace all of the provincial governors with men loyal to himself rather than the crown.

The Royal Palace had held out for three days, the capitol city took a month longer to recapture seeing as they had to try to go easy on the populace. Yuka was the figurehead at the army for the duration and her education in military strategy quickly went from theoretical to practical. Sadly, getting the palace and capitol city of Kouki under control was only the beginning. Asen "dropped his tail" like a lizard when he gathered his remaining forces and ran to the next province over, calling on that provincial governor's army to aid and protect him.

:_If fighting an army wasn't bad enough_,: Yuka remembered. :_The kingdom was __**crawling**__ with Youma!_:

A number of casualties during the first winter war of the Tai's little reconquista were due to Youma attacks. In a series of battles they managed to "crush" the provincial army (many of the common-rank soldiery decided they'd rather lay down thier arms and surrender to the rightful rule of Heaven than to continue fighting) and Asen fled again to the next province over and stir up their troops to start the whole thing over again.

:_Yeah, that was __**not**__ happening!_: Yuka thought, still smiling a little to that day at the way she and Taiki had outmaneuvered the little bastard.

The usurper had clearly set things up so that he could sustain a guerrilla warfare by hopping from province to province, raising the local troops and making a further nuisance of himself. Yuka was more wiling to pursue the diplomatic route. She had reasoned that, due to human nature, a wealthy person in power would want to _keep_ that wealth and power. Any honest general would say that armies were expensive things to field. Thus, supporting an army would cut into the wealth that the provincial lords wanted to enjoy once they were given their rank and titles. There was a war strategy that said "make allies far away and attack nearby" that had been applicable. Yuka had approached the other provincial lords surrounding the province that Asen had fled to with an under-the-table deal. Deny thier patron the aid he wanted (the aid he had put them into place to secure!) and they'd get to keep their palaces and positions. If they chose to harbor a fugitive, she could execute them on sight when she found them. To be perfectly frank, Yuka had had no choice but to deliver that ultimatum. Her powers as the consort were, in fact, quite limited. She could act as a diplomat, and perform offices to which she had been officially appointed by her lord-husband or his taiho (by proxy) but she could not exercsize actual royal authority, such as firing a provincial governor and appointing a new one. That was an _imperial_ prerogative.

:_Which is how this poor kingdom became the massive diplomatic clusterfuck it is today_,: Yuka thought.

Asen had certainly gone down swinging. He was a military strategist the likes of which Yuka only read about in books. Even without meeting him face to face, Yuka could tell by the way he set up his skirmishes that he was very intelligent. She honestly couldn't claim to be any smarter than he was, but he had one weakness that she had been able to exploit. A general of the armies, the man did not seem to even consider the effectiveness of the use of a Navy. The ships on this world were primarily used for _trade_, not fighting; the closest thing they had to a Navy was really more akin to a coast guard. Still, Risai and Yuka were able to herd enough of Asen's major forces to battlefields that were on or near the coastline for them to make a massive sneak attack on land using amphibious warfare tactics, This, combined with the largest airstrike from the kuukoushi (the air force) they could coordinate.

Unfortunately for Yuka's peace of mind, when they at last had the source of all of their troubles in custody, they could not execute him. His immortality could only be revoked by the rightful king, and Taiki begged for leniency on Asen's behalf. Yuka's authority to act was less than Taiki's even with what would become a co-leadership of the imerial court, so there were places where she had to make concessions. With her hands tied, she expediently suggested his exile on the rock-island prison on the Isle of Nen. If they let him run free, even exiled to another kingdom, the man would only have tried to continue his plans, and since those plans included Kaname eventually undergoing shitsudo...

:_He had to go_.:

When she had agreed to act on Taiki's behalf at the head of the armies of Kei and En to liberate Tai from the usurper, she had sworn much more than a mere acting captaincy. She had sworn that she was in it for the duration. If Tai continued on the ruinous course it had taken under the usurper then the Emperor of Heaven would without a doubt declare the current rule insufficient, Tentei would decide the Taki's king, Gyousou, had lost the Way and must be removed from office. Taiki would undergo shitsudo. Yuka had crossed over with the express purpose of preventing that. Never again under her watch would another kirin (let alone her close friend!) undergo shitsudo. Yuka would do all in her power to prevent it.

:_And in this case, preventing it meant repairing the damage Asen did to this poor kingdom. Stabilizing the economy, the government, and restoring the military to a strength that would enable them to start working on Tai's youma problem_.:

All of that would have to be done with the limited powers that she and Taiki shared between them. They could act on behalf of the emperor with certain authorities granted them, but they could _not_ take the place of the king.

_:It would not have been nearly so difficult if Asen had not purged the royal court of damn near every single capable minister in the place!_:

Not to mention, the kingdom was bankrupt. They had also been (and still were) stuck with shuukou, provincial governors, whose only real interest was in mining the gemstone springs and gold springs in their provinces and selling the precious materials to line their own pockets.

:_And of course, any traitor who will turn his back on his patron, will just as easily turn against the next leader in line_.: Yuka thought with remembered irritation for the whole mess.

Not a scant year after Asen's exile, Yuka had just barely managed to capture and deport the last of Asen's military supporters to an island prison-mine off the coast of Tai, when the provincial governors of Sui, Ran, Ki and Chou Provinces in the south section of Tai had gathered their own armies and descended on Whitejewel Palace with the intention of coercing the taiho into being their puppet. Yuka, fed up with their non-sense decided that their little usurper-party should be brought down from the inside.

:_After all, alliances of that nature last only as long as alliances __**can**__ last... that is, until one side sees an advantage_.:

She had heard from Youko that there was actually a song about the way Tai's Royal Consort had waited at the front steps of the imperial palace in her finest gown for the four leaders of the revolt to descend like vultures, ready to pick at the carcass of the remains of Royal Authority. She'd prepared a feast for them before the empty throne of her "husband" and the four of them, seeing her as meek, compliant young girl, had let thier guard down. Each Province Lord had fancied himself the one who would gain control over the royal court by controlling the Royal Consort and Taiho.

To this day she still mentally called that time "The Winter of the Wolves." Sowing dissension and discord among her guests in the fertile ground of their mutual mistrust of each other had been the most fun she'd had since the wars had started.

:_The limited powers of my position wouldn't even let me sentence them to execution for treason_,: Yuka thought. :_I couldn't even reappoint them, for that is a kings prerogative and doesn't even belong to the Taiho. Fortunately for me, there is one specific rule that gave me just enough of a loophole to take care of the problem with those shuukou personally._:

The four southern shuukou who had taken over the Royal palace had all been men of a certain type; interested soley in thier own pleasures. Those interests being wine, food and debauchery. It had only been a matter of time before thier eyes fell on the pretty and vulnerable young Royal Consort. As Yuka had known they would, each Shuukou's thoughts inevitably turned to the idea that if they could make her _his_ woman, then all of her Royal Consort authority would be his for the using. Unfortunately for them, the penalty for laying hands on a woman of her rank was a good deal more than a mere slap on the wrists and a lecture. Yuka had the right to challenge them to combat in order to defend her honor. She had won, and when the time to make the kill-strike had come, she had not hesitated.

No matter that he knew it was necessary, Kaname had censured Yuka for it, believing that she should have acted with greater mercy and simply exiled them as she had done with Asen and his military supporters. There was already a rule in place under Heaven to cover contingency of a Provincial Governor dieing and the king either choosing not to (or in the case of Tai, not being able to) appoint another so Yuka and Taiki had not had to worry about treading on any divine toes or imperial prerogatives. If a province should lack a governor then by default it fell under the jurisdiction of the Saiho, which was another word for the Taiho (Yuka was still a bit fuzzy about the distinction other than that Taiho seemed to be more like an official honorific title). This was called "being under Golden Rule". So when she killed the four southern Shuukou in a duel over her honor and there was no king to appoint a new governor, she simply let it fall to the default setting of Golden Rule and she and Taiki had "appointed" (they couldn't actually appoint, but had sent them as "temporary agents to act on the Taiho's behalf") four new governors for the southern provinces. With the taming of the four southern province's added on to their control over Zui province (which belonged to the Taiho by custom and law) half of the kingdom was back under imperial rule.

:_But half is by no means all of the kingdom, there's still the north to contend with!_:

The northern lords of Ba, Bun, Ie and Jou provinces had hung back when the four lords from the South had moved to take over the palace, likely to see which way the wind blew and probably so that they could amass their own forces to take over the palace from then when the right moment arrived.

:_The problem is, its awfully difficult to get leverage on a group of people who have no shame and whom I cannot actually officially punish, or reappoint_.:

Thus had started a series of diplomatic and economic mini-wars between the four northern shuukou and Yuka. It was a war where her enemy held nearly all of the better weapons, but Yuka had a few trump cards she could play and thus far she had played them well. For instance, the only province in the north that was self-sufficient in providing its own food was Jou Province, the largest of them, the rest relied on the money brought in from selling the products of its gem-springs to purchase stores for the winter. It had taken some work but fortunately what was needed to be done to bring those stubborn lords to heel also fell in with her plans to create a more diversified export market for Tai (which relied nearly entirely on the export of gold and precious gems).

Yuka had improved the infrastructure of the south provinces (a tale in and of itself) so that transportation of materials between provinces would aid in export for foreign trade. Most provinces, aside of Bun, had their own ports so any gold or gems that were grown (rather than mined like on her world) could be exported directly from nearby. Yuka's ultimate plans lay in driving those northern home-ports out of business, forcing the shuukou of the northern provinces to send their goods to her southern ports due to higher trade-traffic. As such she'd ordered the construction not just of new infrastructure but also new ports in the southern provinces, ones with superior and more efficient facilities.

_:After all, a captain will sooner take his ship to a place where he does not have to languish at anchor in the harbor waiting for a port to open up rather than wait for days possibly just to get a larger supply of the gems. Captains rely on getting thier good quickly from place to place, and a shorter off-loading and loading time means more money faster for them_.:

She'd also worked on finding new markets for other things that Tai produced but did not export in great quantity in order to boost the economies of the provinces loyal to the crown. In addition to that, discovering or inventing new materials and creating markets for them also meant new jobs and a more stable economy. Tai now exported a material made from tree-sap that was sort of like plastic or plexiglass. It used to make windows that were less expensive than the near-ruinously expensive glass windows. They also exported a fabric made from a fibrous, slightly gooey plant that, if treated correctly became waterproof (it was in demand at home as well since Tai spent so much of its time with snow on the ground and waterproof coat were a boon in the snow). Ran Province produced exquisite dyes from the few ex-gem springs in that province that were exported via Sui province to Kei where Youko's countrymen used them on their textiles. The shift in job-markets to the south had resulted in a predictable population shift.

:_Those northern lords got so used to their precious stones being such a hot commodity that they completely overlooked the draw and appeal of new things on the market! Heh, in teh words of teh kitteh; "Ai iz at yur ports, stealin' yur trades!"_:

She had also known that if Tai was to be successful as a trading nation, it needed better infrastructure. The roads in Tai when she and Taiki took back control of the imperial palace had not only been crawling with bandits and youma, they had been in terrible condition as well. The harsh winters had combined with the lack of maintenance since the rightful king had been displaced combined to make the roads all but useless for traveling overland. A nation that depended on trade unable to get its goods to port for export in a timely fashion would be crippling. Unfortunately the imperial coffers were all but bare and repairing roads was a lengthy and laborious process requiring a great deal of labor, resources and money that Tai did not have. Yuka wanted a less expensive and more useful shortcut. For a long time they hadn't been able to come up with anything... however a chance remark by Kaname had given her the _ah-ha_! moment she needed to come up with a way to save Tai's coffers and infrastructure all in one stroke. He had remarked on the winters being perfect for skiing and it had been the mention of the sport that had jogged loose the picture of the ski-lifts used for transportation up mountains in winter.

Careful planning and an ingenious corps of engineers hired from En and Ryuu by the Ministry of Winter had attacked the various problems with building the cable gondola system. There was slope to be adjusted for (a gradient for safe travel over the system could not exceed thirty degrees, but that was dealt with by changing the height of many of the suspension towers. The towers themselves had to be carefully designed to withstand the terrible winters in Tai, dangers of snow-storms and avalanches and wind-shear to be dealt with. Plus the testing the appropriate metal for the cable itself, they could not have a metal that would be too brittle in Tai's bitter cold. Then there was testing the system for weight-bearing, and then deciding on the routes, and many other matters. The skyways had a chain of cars like a gondola, but they rested thier wight on two cables hung on either side of the cars and rode over (sort of like a train) by special wheels. The cars were moved by another cable on the top that was connected to an old fashioned bull-roarer, or a large wheel that was set sideways, the spin powered by an oversized "hampster wheel" run by large, healthy horses. Cables were supported periodically by slightly smaller arch-towers (for stability) and there were stations at periodic intervals for ease of maintenance and so that the horses running the wheels didn't get over-tired by having to "pull" a load for too long a distance.

:_Best of all, the system essentially pays for itself, and we have a way to get not only goods, but news and imperial relief and aid to about any province in the network in a matter of days!_: Yuka thought with a pardonable feeling of pride. If she was remembered for nothing else, she would be proud if history would remember her for this. She really, really wanted to take a ride on the skyway just once!

On the third year of there being fewer people to work the gem-springs up north Yuka had struck at the northern lords with her next right hook. She'd cut off the gem-trade with Han. It was a gamble; Tai had already been bankrupt, and her recent transportation restructuring campaigns, while free in terms of man-power (she had plenty of prisoners to work with, though she and Taiki had went round and round about it) had strained Tai's already slender resources almost to the breaking point. Han was the biggest purchaser of the gemstones and gold that Tai was so well known for and it was still a major source of income... unfortunately it was a major source of income for her "enemies" (though technically they were all supposed to be on the same side) so Yuka had reluctantly sealed off the gem-trade and began her economic stranglehold on the Northern Provinces. Naturally they looked for other markets for their gems but Yuka had pursued an expansionist policy when it came to foreign trade so any port city that was able to receive their gems, Yuka already had a rather large foothold in.

:_And by foothold, I mean spies_...:

She knew pretty much who sold what where and for how much, so she was able to make certain deals with certain interested parties to get certain other parties interested in acquiring stones to take their interests elsewhere... or else. It wasn't perfect by any means and there was still the black market to contend with, but the northern shuukou were feeling the hurt. Word from her spies was, they were missing their luxuries. Their people were all slowly shifting down to the south of Tai in provinces where the economy was stable and there were more jobs. Yuka was greatly concerned about the population shift and what it could mean for the future. She rather hoped that the king might know what to do about that when he woke up. For now, she was working on her latest salvo in the eternal economic and diplomatic wars with the northern shuukou.

:_They know better than to attack me and Taiki outright_,: Yuka thought in frustration.

They knew that if they led an insurrection against her or tried to coerce her or Taiki directly, she would be perfectly justified (and perfectly happy) to release the military on them and replace them with more temporary governors who were amenable to her advice. So they were stuck in this diplomatic mire in which no-one really won. It was a constant series of political skirmishes between them. She lacked the authority to oust them permanently or punish them officially and they knew it so she was forced to resort to coercive measures. Any lever that was powerful enough to make them react also had an effect on every person under them. Yuka had done her best to get the helpless civilian population out of the way of thier fight, so the flow of emigrants headed to the south for better jobs and opportunities Yuka often thought of as being more like refugees trying to flee out of a battlefield.

:_At least the youma problem is being taken care of!_:

She had received numerous complaints from En and Kei (Ryuu seemed to have its own concerns) about the influx of Youma from Tai (and since they had so kindly married her into the royal family could she please do something about making them less of a nuisance for everyone?). Tai had a new career path, the hunter-warriors. She'd even set up a guild. The crown would pay so much per head per different kind of monster. It wasn't perfect, but sadly, the military could not always be spared to hunt youma as much as Yuka would have liked.

:_But it is a trade-off_,: She thought with a wry smile of amusement. :_These adventuring youma-hunters are civilians and don't have the same discipline as an officer in the military, and though the guild produces a large number of heroes it also produces its share of drunken disorderlies._:

Fortunately for her, that was usually a problem to be handled by the local judiciary.

:_I suppose, all things totalled, it could be worse_,: she reminded herself to be optimistic. :_After all, Taiki's __**not**__ undergoing shitsudo, and that's my main objective, so I must be doing something right.:_

It seemed that even though the running of the kingdom was unorthodox, it was at least stable enough that the Tentei of this world had spared poor Kaname.

:_I just wish that stupid king would wake the hell up!_: she thought impatiently.

It was a plaint that had worn thin with the passage of time. Yuka thought that there probably wasn't a day that went by that she did not wish that the damn Chyoukoku would come out of chrysalis and leave its host so he could get back on his throne and run his kingdom like he was supposed to!

:_I'm not supposed to be doing this job, I;m not even really supposed to be here! I should be old and married with ten kids and a hundred grandkids by now. I should be knitting them sweaters or whatever it is grannies spend their time on!_:

But _no_. Here she was stuck inside of the imperial palace every day, forced to maneuver around power-hungry lords who could not be put in their place, and economic troubles she could do little more than manipulate, and a constant sad, weary people she lacked the power to even comfort.

She often envied Youko; if Youko had difficulties _she,_ at least, had the option of being _proactive_ about them. If a member of her nobility was giving her trouble, she could summon the recalcitrant noble and stand him before her on the carpet to either dress him down or fire his ass. She could make decrees about a situation as she saw fit. She could even go out and investigate matters herself, leaving her throne in the capable hands of her Taiho and her loyal court. By contrast, Yuka was forced by her rank and the situation in the kingdom to stay inside the palace.

_:I feel like Taiki and I are the Penelope and Telemachus to his Odysseus_,: Yuka thought with a small smile.

She had taken a walk to help alleviate her lingering frustration with having to unravel yet another knot created by the provincial governors of the northern provinces and her feet had drawn her to the emperors chamber where she knew that Taiki would be.

:_He's so devoted to his king, I know its a kirin's nature to be happy around thier ruler... I hope for his sake that this king he loves so much is worth it. If he's a useless fellow, I'll skin him._: Yuka promised herself.

At any time when they were not at court or dealing with the affairs of the realm, Taiki came to the emperors chamber in Seiden Palace, where they had put the king to sleep out his chrysalis in peace. And because this was the place where her friend Taiki could be found, Yuka was as familiar with the chamber and the bedside of the sleeping king as her friend was.

As usual, Kaname sat in a chair next to the bed, slumped over onto his side, curled up next to his liege. Yuka picked up a nearby throw blanket, pushed over an ottoman and gently straightened her friends limbs and covered him up. She knew of his prefference for sleeping next to the person he loved most in the world, and if she couldn't support him in what made him happiest then there was no point to her being there at all.

:_Hurry and wake up_,: Yuka thought at the sleeper with a sigh. :_He's waiting for you to wake up. We all are_.:


	3. Dum Vita Est, Spes Est

Yuka bent to the table right beside the bed and cupped her hand around the candle burning there to illuminate the room. Out of habit she glanced out of the corner of her eye at the man she had spent so many years helping without ever having once spoken to him. Even in sleep he seemed a stern sort of man, his features seemed like they were given more to serious frowns than to laughter... but given the previous king's predelection for levity (and the bankruptcy it led to) perhaps he was what Tai needed. Yuka had only his reputation and what other people who knew him had said about him to frame a judge of him with, and that made her uneasy. She liked to form her own impressions. Taiki had told her often about him, how he was a virtuous man who saw deeply into people and situations.

:_To give him credit, what few retainers managed to escape the purge Asen set on them are fanatically loyal to him, so I guess there must be something good about him._:

Yuka's own feelings about him were mixed. If it hadn't been for him she would never have met Taiki, and Yuka felt that her life and her ability to see ethical and moral actions had been improved by that. Certainly Taiki had become her true heart-friend, she wasn't in love with the kirin but she did love him and was loyal to him like no other. On the other hand however, if the man had not been outfoxed by his rival and gotten into the situation, (no matter that it was not his fault) Tai would be a better place. Kaname would not have spent these many long years in a state of wistful mourning, the people would most likely not have suffered as greatly, and she herself would not have had to deal with the royal nonsense day in and day out.

:_When he wakes up, I may have to hit him,_: Yuka decided. :_I don't care whether this mess is not his fault really, he's the cause of it and I'm tired and cranky from dealing with it!:_

She already knew that she probably wouldn't do anything of the sort, but she did know one thing... when that man was well enough to sit on his throne again Yuka was buggering the hell out of the palace!

:_Ah, freedom..._: Yuka thought wistfully.

As much as Taiki wanted his king to wake up because he missed him, Yuka wanted him to wake up for another reason. She wanted out of there! She had been cooped up in the palace dealing with coups, and diplomats, merchant princes, and corrupt officials and all manner of things (plus all of the lessons in court ettequite she'd had to master secretly to keep up the appearance of a royal consort) for the last five decades. The palace was large but Yuka knew every inch of it by then and it simply was not big enough for her. She wanted the world. She wanted the freedom to go and see all of the places she had had dealngs with over the years. She wanted a break from the endless stress of court and the political manuverings.

:_I need a vacation!_: she thought, not for the first time.

She had it all planned out too, in her head. She was going to see the seaside, visit an onsen, watch a play, go shopping, go tour the port-cities she'd ordered constructed, take a ride on a skyway and that was only in Tai. She wanted to visit Youko, whom she had kept up a very lively correspondence with. She'd advised the queen to use fashion to boost her kingdoms economy by creating Houses that sold names and held shows to display thier work for every season, and now Kei was the Paris, the Milan, of this world and quite wealthy because of it. Yuka wanted to go shopping for fashinable clothes rather than the court uniform she had to wear everyday. Sure it was an exuisite peice of cloth art, made even more beautiful by her and Taiki's combined tatses, but after fifty years of it it was as boring as a school uniform for her. And of course she wanted to visit En for the wonderful libraries and bookshops they had there. Yuka was a bookworm from before she'd crossed over to that world, and she still loved to read. And there was also the port in Han, which she had heard wonderful things about, she'd heard that there were all manner curiosities there and she wanted to see them for herself. And then there was Ren, which Kaname had told her about from his previous visit. It was supposed that there were wonderful beaches there and Yuka had always wanted to try surfing.

:T_here's so many things I want to do and see and try!_: Yuka thought with impatient excitement. :_I wish this guy would hurry up and wake up so I can get out of here and live a real life for a change!_:

Yuka looked over at him, sleeping as soundly as ever. The king of Tai was an immortal, so regardless of how much time had passed, as long as he remained in his position as king nad Taiki did not get sick, then he would remain unchanged. By extension, when Yuka had been married to him (even by proxy) and Taiki had put her name on his family register, she too had been listed among the ranks of the immortals.

Raising her head, Yuka looked into a nearby mirror at her own face. Physically, she remained unchanged from the day she had been married to him, but even Youko commented that she looked different.

"You were always so cool towards people, really aloof and hard to get to know. Sometimes I got the feeling you looked down on all of us. Even though everyone excluded you, you sometimes gave off the aura of someone to whom the petty concerns of the students weren't of great importance. Well, now it's like all that stand-offish self-possession you had has just gotten worse."

Yuka wasn't sure that Youko had been complimenting her. In fact she was sure that her friend had been trying to give her helpful criticsm.

:_But it's not exactly as though I've got a whole lot of choice in the way I act_,: Yuka thought with a small frown. :_I'm in a different position from a rightful ruler, I'm not a ruler at all. The only thing I'm here to do is to try to prop up the throne and stabilize the kingdom so Taiki doesn't have to die. I'm surrounded by enemies I can't do anything about, and if they don't have at least a little bit of warriness about me then I won't be able to get anything done._:

In her case, she wasn't out to be loved, she needed more to be feared and respected. A cool and aloof manner, when combined with the right leverage, made her opponents just wary enough of crossing her thus bringing down her wrath on them to make the situation manageable. She relied on the image she'd created of a cold, aloof and dangerous woman to cross in order to keep her enemies and her allies in line.

_:If I had never gotten invoved_,: Yuka looked at the mirror, which reflected back the image of a well-polished woman rather than the sixteen year old she had been when she'd crossed over. :_Would I have fallen in love? Would I have been happily married to some warm-hearted idiot and had many children to dote on? Would we have shared meals together and made a house into a home? Would I have gotten to be a tiger-mama to the children about their grades and fussed at him about his job? Would I be old and happy right now, content that I'd lived a full life?_:

She'd made her choice, and she in no way regretted it. There were times, after a particularly effective political manuver or when an economic campaign bore fruit and made more jobs and helped the economy, when Yuka was glad she'd done it. But there was no denying that it had been lonely. Even with Taiki beside her, there was a part of him that was always away with his king. And besides that, she didn't see him that way. Because of her position as a married woman Yuka could not even flirt mildly with anyone. After all even if it had been out of necessity, she had given her promise of fidelity to him and she was not the sort to go back on her word.

:_That doesn't mean that it's not lonely for me sometimes..._: Yuka thought wistfully.

"Hurry and wake up," She whispered over at him, moving to blow out the candle. "We're all waiting, and none of us can move on until you do."

She was just about to blow out the candle when she swore she saw a movement.

:_Surely it was just a trick of the light_,: she told herself, even as she bent over to see more closely, her breath hitching with supressed hope. :_The candles play all sorts of tricks with the flickers of light and shadow.:_

It happened again, his fingers moved!

:_They twitched, I'm sure I saw them!_: she thought excitedly.

She watched Gyousou like a cat at a mousehole, waiting for more signs that he might actually finally be waking up. The next movement came after so long a wait that she'd almost given up, and it was larger. His whole arm moved and his breathing pattern changed! Elated, Yuka spun and shook Kaname by the shoulder.

"Hey! Hey wake up!" she said in an excited whisper. She wasn't quite sure why she was whispering, for something like this she felt like she should wake the whole palace. "Kaname, wake up!"

"Wha-?" he asked, blinking sleepily over at her. "What's wrong?"

"Look," Yuka said, leaning closer to the sleeping king. "His breathing has changed, and I think I saw him move!"

Kaname leaned close searching his features with frantic hope, desperate for him to at last wake up. Yuka felt sort of bad for waking him and telling him so soon, what if she was wrong? She'd have gotten his hopes up for nothing. It had happened in the past after all, but usually it was due to his own hopes rather than her prompting. But a moment later the king did it again, he stirred fully that time, his eyelids fluttered and he took in a sharp breath, like a person preparing to wake. He even shook his head! Yuka and Kaname exchanged twin looks of delight. Kaname daringly reached forward and gently poked at his shoulder, as if afraid he might hurt his leige

"Gyousou-sama? Gyousou-sama?" he said, his voice high pitched with hope and urgency. "Are you awake? Can you hear me, Gyousou-sama?"

"Mmh," the king grumbled, his voice rusty from disuse.

"Should I get a bucket of cold water?" Yuka asked teasingly.

"Yuka! You should do no such thing!" Taiki replied to her teasing, falling for it as he always did. He turned back to his king.

"Gyousou-sama, please wake up."

For the first time in all the time since she'd met him, Gyousou's eyes at last flickered awake. They were a strange color, sort of a deep brownish red color, and though he'd been asleep for decades, his eyes focused quickly and with a few flickering glances took in everything he could see.

"Gyousou-sama!" Taiki cried falling on his chest and weeping with relief.

:_I should leave them to thier tearful reunion_,: she thought. :_Poor Taiki's been through a lot, and he's been waiting so long for this moment. I should leave them to enjoy it in peace._:

Yuka slid the door aside and stepped out onto the pathway between the imperial suite and the kings private gardens, giving the two of them some privacy. Yuka figured she might go back to her rooms and get some sleep for it was late that night (or early that morning actually) and she anticipated that tomorrow was going to be a busy day. She was stopped by Taiki calling for her.

"Yuka!" he called out.

Curious, Yuka poked her head back into the room and Taiki beckoned her over. She gingerly walked back into the room, feeling very much like a fifth wheel on a moment beween king and kirin.

"This is Yuka," Kaname said with a happiness and cheer that Yuka had never seen on his face before.

Taiki's eyes were more animated, his posture was not so slumped, it seemed like even his breath came easier to him. Yuka looked over at him fondly, pleased to see her dear friend in such high spirits for once. There had been some few times when they had been able to laugh over something in the decades between the time they'd taken the throne and now, but those moments had been far between. Mostly, keeping the kingdom together was a grim, serious business.

"She stayed with me and helped me all this time," Kaname said enthusatically.

For the first time Yuka met eyes with the man she'd been supposedly married to all this time. Even from several paces away, she finally got what all of his retainers meant when they talked about his aura. He did have a great force of personality, his gaze carried both a sharpness and a weight to it that was like its own gravity. Yuka felt her own pride rise to the surface to meet it. Her spine straightened and her posture took on the same aura of self-possession she had whenever she was faced with a room full of hostile diplomats or disrespectful ministers, the cultivated aura of someone who would not brook any disrespect to her person and they should back down if they knew what was good for them. Without even intending to she locked gazes with him, his force of personality that reached out at her and pushed her back, she pushed back against. He seemd surprised and his eyes sharpened, Yuka too, narrowed her gaze at him without consciously realizing it. Kaname seemed startled by it and Yuka suddenly remembered herself as her attention was caught by Taiki, looking between them.

:_That's right, technically I am a guest here in his palce and all of this stuff has been done without his knowledge or consent. I should play nice, at least until I can pack up and leave_,: Yuka reminded herself. :_There's no point into getting into a contest of wills with this man after all, he's not invading my turf, rather I have invaded his!:_

"I'm glad to meet Kaname's king," Yuka said with a polite bow at him. "Please treat me kindly in the future."

"Thank you for your hard work," he replied automatically.

The sheer prosaicness of such routine phases during that particular moment and in that particular situation, startled a small, fleeting smile of amusement at the incongruity of it onto her face. A second later it was echoed on the strangers face, and Yuka saw the kindness that Taiki had so often described to her on it. She was surprised by the relief she felt. She had worried for all of the time she had played her role as consort, propping up the throne so that her friend would not face shitsudo, that the man he loved and idolized was less than he remembered. It would take a person every bit as strong and stronger to finally bring Tai to its proper order.

"Well," Yuka said into the small silence that followed. "It has been a long day for me, and it will likely be an even longer one tomorrow."

"We should announce the good news!" Taiki said enthusiastically. "All of the province lords are here for New Years, we should tell everyone that the king is awake, then those nasty governors from the north will start behaving themselves."

"That's precisely what we should _not_ do," Yuka said in urgent alarm, seizing Taiki's wrist to prevent him from running off to rouse the house.

Could he not see all the ways that that was a very bad idea?! The man was drained to the dregs and wouldn't be able to lift a pen let alone a sword to defend himself for at least another day or two, no matter how fast a healer his immortality made him. In the meantime, he was litterally surrounded by enemies in his own palace, for the shuukou had gathered for the New Years ceremonies and feast. Counting Taiki they had just over half of the kingdom as allies, but those damn northern shuukou had used much of the extra money from selling thier gems on the black market to outfit thier armies with weapons and armor. Even if thier land-forces could not march through the frozen passes of winter, thier air forces were not anything to sneeze at. The situation was already precarious as it was, adding the possiblity of real, official retribution into the mix was setting a match to a powder keg. If they were going to take them on, they needed to be at thier best. They couldn't do that unless the king could actually defend himself.

"But why?" he asked, cocking his head to one side.

Yuka sighed a little with an empathic look on her face and said

"The lords of the north have firmly entrenched themselves in thier territories. Right now they are arrogant, confident in thier safety from anyone being able to take any real action against them."

"But what about those economic sanctions-?" taiki argued.

"It's a political and economic war," Yuka corrected gently. "By nature it's not a violent one. So far, I've been able to keep the peole of Tai mostly out of harms way, but that is *only* because those shuukou think they have all of the time in the world. They believe they are immune from retribution because our powers to act against them are limited, thus they've become arrogant. If they suddenly discover that their time is up they will become desperate men. Desperate men take action, no matter how foolish. They still have armies, and many of our own provincial armies and the palace guard are spread out dealing with the youma. If they should band together and attack, the few reserves we've been able to raise will not be enough to hold them off for long. Aside of that, we've gotten the economy and the youma problem stabilized but barely, we litterally cannot afford a civil war. No, the thing to do for right now is to continue playing the board as we have been. I have a few surprises for those men tomorrow that will take thier mind off any inquiries into his majesty's health. We should wait until he's fully recovered before we take any action or make any announcements."

"Gyousou-sama is in fine health! He's an immortal!" Taiki protested hotly, injured on his master's behalf.

Yuka graced him with a dry, flat look, then reached over and picked the king's arm up between her thumb and forefinger by the wrist and dropped it. Gyousou hadn't even had the strength to take his wrist out of her grasp and he glared ineffectually at her.

"You see?" she replied to Taiki with a raised brow. "That Chyoukoku sapped him of all of his strength. Given his immortality it will probably not take long, hopefully it will not take long, but he does need some small time to rebuild his reserves and gather his strength. And besides all of that, you and I have been mired in the sitation for years so we take for granted the complexity of it, but he's going to need some time to get a handle on matters. He can be debreifed or whatever the military term for it is, as he recovers his strength. For now, I am tired and I'm going to get some sleep, I'll need to be my best for the morning."

With a purposely graceful bow, Yuka rose and left them, seeking her own rest. For the first time in a very long time she slept deeply, relieved to know that the wait was over and the end of her trials was at last in sight.


	4. Eheu, fugaces labunter anni

Gyousou looked down at the form of his sleeping kirin, curled up against his chest peacefully and sighed a bit. He looked over at the soft grey light of dawn brightening the sky outside of his window with a hazy feeling of disbelief overcoming him.

_ :It seems so unreal,:_ he reflected to himself with sorrow. _:So much time has passed, and so much has happened to my kingdom without me.:_

His kirin had been sparing on the details, saying that Gyousou was still recovering from the ravages of the youma that had inhabitted him and that there was plenty of time to go over the details later. But he had hit the high points, fifty years of sleep had passed and Tai was stable but still teetered on the edge without its rightful king on the throne. Taiki was definitely older than when he had left, and Asen's final words to him before he had loosed the Choukyoku on him had been that he would be the kingdom's never-ending downfall, that Gyousou would not age, would not die and neither would his kirin, but likewise Tai would never again know the protection of Heaven.

_ :Madness,:_ Gyousou thought.

Even though he was angry at the man, and enraged that Asen would do this to the innocent people of Tai, let alone sweet Taiki who had never harmed anyone, in private Gyousou Saku still mourned for Asen, ever so slightly. They had grown up together, attended academy together, been brothers in arms for many years. Asen was the closest thing that Gyousou had had to a brother, it saddened him to loose him, even though he knew he'd lost the brother he cared for long ago.

_ :I had not thought that her death would ruin him. We were both hurt by her loss, and it is not as though I felt the pain of it any less keenly, but he could have come to me and we would have grieved together._:

Sadly, he knew such a thing was and had been impossible. Asen would never have mourned with the man he blamed for her death. He blamed Gyousou, he blamed Tai, and he blamed Heaven for not preserving her.

_ :In his mind, both myself and Tentei should be made to pay, and the kingdom that required her sacrifice be made to suffer, I suppose.:_

Gyousou allowed himself one last sigh of sorrow rather than allow his thoughts to become bitter, then turned his attention to his kirin. In his sleep, no sign of anything that had passed in the interim that Gyousou had been under the spell showed. He did not look worn or weary, but still peaceful and innocent, though a few years older than when Gyousou had last seen him.

_ :__**That**__ may take some getting used to,:_ Gyousou thought.

Next he tested out his own limbs and found that the girl's assessment of him the night previous was quite correct. He could move but he was incredibly wearied. He had fought battles that lasted for days and waged campaigns that had taken weeks of constant skirmishing that had not left him feeling so drained as he did then.

_ :The girl was right about that much at least, and it worries me greatly about what else she had to say.:_

Gyousou knew that there had been long interregnums in the past while the kirin searched for a suitable person, but most of those had been with a stable provisional government in hand. Gyousou himself had had a large hand in stabilizing the last provisional government personally. Most of them, even if they followed a civil war or insurrection, at least had all of the officials in all of the right places (whether they were corrupt or virtuous officials was another matter entirely). He dreaded to think of what his kingdom must be like now, with a king technically enthroned but out of commission and the court unable to move forward. Added on to that, he _knew_ that Asen had usurped the throne and ruined the court, making certain to knock every capable military and civilian official out of place. The beams that Gyousou had so meticulously put into place to shore up the rotting pillars from the previous kings reign had all been taken out so that Asen could watch the whole thing crumble.

_ :Except that, by the sounds of things, it hasn't,:_ he thought with profound relief.

Gyousou Saku truly _loved_ his kingdom. Tai was a hard, harsh and often unforgiving land, but he loved it. He had always felt that it was his duty to protect his people, to safeguard them and look out for their welfare. It hurt him deeply that he had failed in that. He had assumed the throne with the promise of a stable and effective rule, had had everything in place for a smooth and successful transition of power, but in the course of a single day and night it seemed all of that promise had turned to ash. Now he awoke in the morning to a land he did not know and that did not know him.

_ :I have let my land and people down,:_ he thought to himself.

Taiki moved and snuggled closer to his master.

_ :And Taiki, what have you suffered because of my weakness?:_

Gyousou's thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of the doord that led to his inner courtyard garden, the garden he shared with Taiki's Meiden Palace, snapping open without a request for entry.

"I thought I'd find you here and it looks like you're thinking about things," the girl from the previous evening said briskly, looking sharply at him.

She was dressed in an under-robe for a court function and in her arms she had a very large stack of books and a few scrolls (maps by the looks of them) balanced on top of the books. She walked right over, without even a bow or an obeisance to him, and deposited the books next to him.

"It's probably not what you want to hear, but I've been told I'm the queen of uncomfortable truths," the girl said, her tone still brisk and businesslike with him. "We're all in a bad way, and your being asleep for decades hasn't helped matters any. Whether it your fault or his doesn't matter, it is what it is and there's no sense wishing otherwise. But-"

Here she contrived to look sort of cheerful, but didn't really.

"We knew you'd have to wake up some time, so we took notes for you. These volumes cover everything we've been doing for the last while, the diagrams are to help you get a better understanding of the population shifts, the new trade routes, the infrastructure improvements and the resource-redistributions and all of that. If you have any questions, taiki and Risai will be right there. Study hard!"

"Wait!" he commanded when it looked like she was simply going to turn around on her heel and march out without even a by-your-leave-your-majesty.

The girl looked back over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised in question.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

She had to be some sort of official, but Gyousou was certain he would have remembered appointing someone like her to a seat. She looked young, but in order to have been involved from the beginning as she implied, she would have to be an immortal. The girl turned and looked back at him, hesitated and gave a small, soft, not-smile.

"I am... Taiki's friend. I'm here to save him."

With that, she left.

_:Save him? What does she mean by that?:_ he wondered.

She had specifically said save and not help. It seemed sort of odd. Gyousou had the discomforting feeling that, before the week was out, he was gong to be feeling a lot more disoriented. A few minutes later his friend and fellow general Risai all but burst in on him. She knelt quickly to her knees and bowed, but there was no doubt that she was overjoyed. Still she tried to maintain her customary dignity though there were signs o tears running down her face.

"Your Majesty!" she all but gasped out.

"General Risai," he rumbled in acknowledgement.

Taiki stirred and stretched, opened his eyes and blinked up at him. At the sight of him awake, the young man's (well, not really so young anymore) features transformed with joy to that smiling face that he remembered so well. Gyousou could not help smiling back at him. No matter what else had occurred, at least there was this.

"Your majesty, I am overcome with joy to see you well at last," Risai said.

"Mostly well," he acknowledged with a pang of annoyance.

He could feel his own energy starting to trickle back into place and though it was probably even more quickly than the girl had thought, he knew that getting him ready to re-assume his throne would take some time anyway, so there really was no point in rushing things just yet. He should make certain he was fully ready.


	5. Auribus teneo lupum

That day was what Yuka had come to call a Culture Day and it was one of the rare treats she had to look forward to over the course of the year.

:_I don't know whether to say it is pathetic or admirable that I have such a strange event held,_: she thought to herself.

Because neither she nor Taiki were natural citizens of Tai, and yet they both held the fate of the kingdom together, the two of them had worried that the impact of the decisions that they had to make would not take the people who were affected by them in to good enough account. With only a basic high school education, Yuka could point out at least a dozen hitorical incidences in which well-meaning decisions made by foreign powers (like many of Great Britains "colonies" in other countries such as India and China) that had not taken the deep-rooted culture, social mores and beliefs into account had ended in disaster. Since neither she nor Taiki had known all that much about Tai except what they were able to read in books, they both had felt that they lacked a true understanding of the lands and people they were set up to rule.

_ :And since the situation prevented either of us from walking around and visiting with people, we had little choice but to bring the people to us if we were to be able to meet with them and understand them, even just a little bit.:_

Since the end of the winter wars when bringing about economic stability and ridding the land of Youma became thier primary objectives in order to stabilize the government they had held this particular bit of strangeness. Yuka and Taiki had ordered that the soldiers stationed in peaceful (and even some hostile if they could manage it) provinces would politiely request that a few people from different classes and backgrounds, from all walks of life, from farmer and fisher to merchant and aristocrat, would take some time out from thier lives to travel t the capitol and meet with "someone." It was never exactly specified who that someone was, and the people were never told that they had met with the Taiho and the acting queen-consort of Tai to hear about their lives. They even held the meeting in a non-descript house down in the capitol city of Kouki, Yuka dressed in plain clothes and ferried down there by one of her guards. It was the only time at all during the year when she got to leave the palace.

They tried to get a pretty good sampling, all occupations and ages, genders and hanjuu as well in order to get the widest perspective possible. Taiki and Yuka just listened to them, they asked questions about what thier lives were like and what thier homes were like, anything from questions about architecture to weather and climate conditions to what an average day in thier lives might be like. They listened to thier concerns (and there were a great many of them) and thier unsettled feelings over how the world was changing, and how some of them thought the changes were good because of the upward mobility or bad because of thier traditional values.

_ :I think we have a pretty good cross section of the population this time,_: Yuka thought as she looked down at the list of people she was supposed to meet with.

She had fishers from several different areas around the coast, each from a different province, there were farmers, of both genders and of varrying age-groups from all around, even from what Yuka had come to think of as enemy territory.

_ :It will be even more important to listen and understand them,:_ Yuka reminded herself. _:After all, they are the ones who will be and have been most affected by the decisions Taiki and I have made.:_

There were what Yuka still thought of a miners (though could you call them that when what they did was more along the lines of harvest rather than dig in the earth to wrest out treasure?) and of course merchants of the south, but a few from the north. There were shepherds or whatever the local equivalent was, and some butchers, there were also students, and traveling minstrels, youma-slayers, a few nobles from old families in a scattering of the provinces, vinters and cheesmakers as well as several people who worked in some of the newer crafts that had cropped up.

What Yuka found out over the course of the day did, as usual, increase her understanding of the kingdom she was supposedly supposed to be running with the help of Taiki. She learned that the farmers of the north were having just as hard a time of things as she had feared they would be; there were less migrant workers to help them take in the harvests because everyone had moved down south for jobs in the towns. In addition, crops were harder to plant with less people to plant them. She learned that some of the ones who had emmigrated down south for jobs were actually having trouble finding work in some places and that many of them missed thier old homes but knew they would not be able to return because if they did, the provincial governor and his armies would take all of their food that they needed to survive in order to feed the belly of htier troops at lesser expense to themselves. She also learned that sap-glass was technically considered to be a part of glass-work, though there were comming to be specialized apprenticeships for it. The waterproof cloth was naturally part of the textiles, but also required specialized training and materials, they'd had to reinvent the loom in order to manage the strange fibers that fed into it. The fishers of the coast were about the same as they ever were though they complained about the greater amount of merchant-traffic along the sea-ways disrupting thier fishing spots. Yuka heard a lot of complaints when she didn't manage to gently steer the conversation to the speaker to talking about his family and his ancestors and what his sort generally believed about the world.

_ :Give a person an ear to complain to and they'll certainly talk a mile,:_ Yuka thought with a wry grin as the kijyuu that had taken her down to the small, neat house she had set up to meet people in (a comforatble place that was not threateneing in any way) took her back up to the palace.

Once she shed her relatively plain civilan clothes, the ladies who attended her room all but shoved her into the bath and scrubbed her down. It was like they were afraid the common dust she brought in from the streets might contaminate thier precious palace or something. Next she was arrayed in one of her more elaborate court robes with beading and embriodery everywhere. Her maids dressed her hair, which Yuka had allowed to grow out for the whole time she'd been acting consort as a symbol of her will to see things through (she planned to cut it all off when she was finally free of the palace), was coifed in an elaborate style with combs and jeweled hairpins.

Yuka examined herself in the mirror, sometimes it still surprised her not to see an ordinary schoolgirl looking back at her but a fine lady wearing ancient-style hanfuu and jewels and looking like a doll from out of a display or painting.

_ :And I'm ready for battle,:_ she thought with resignation as she straightened her spine and put her game face on.

A cabinet meeting to discuss the on-going affairs of the kingdom could be chancey at times. While Many of the ministers were on her side, there were some that were left over from the usurpers reign that Yuka could not remove from office and replace with another, and one that was left over from the previous king that always seemed to inadvertantly be causing troubles for them, though he was in fact well-intentioned.

The daishito and the soushito (prime and vice ministers respectively) of the Ministry of Earth (interior and census bureau) were, thank the mercy of Tentei, still left over from Gyousou's tenure as king. They had been firm and staunch allies to her and Taiki as well as excellent advisors. They had not, of course, always agreed with the dicisions that she and Taiki had made between them about the necessity of changing the rules of the game, but with thier help (once they knew that neither the consort nor the Taiho would change thier minds on a point) the transition for the population was made much less painfully and with less confusions than it would otherwise have been. Now, each family that moved to a new province could check in at a census house, give thier names, former province and occupation and whether they had held land or not for recordkeeping purposes, and hear about any good opportunities for them nearby hopefully. The records were so that, when the land hopefully did eventually stabilize, their family might be able to reclaim thier ancestral lands without trouble. Hopefully.

The daishiko and soushiko of the Ministry of Fall, the judiciary, had been put into place by Asen and had been so firmly entrenched that Yuka and Taiki had been all but forced to accept them. They were not quite corrupt, that was, they did not allow the laws to be mocked or broken with impunity, but then again they let so many technicalities through that it made the regulatory authority of the laws look like a sieve. Yuka and those two were not openly at war but they had a mutual dislike for each other. The Choushi (the person who reported the activities of the other officials) was at least a fairly decent sort, his morals were a bit flexible but he did not allow excessive abuses of power within his sphere of influence. He too had more or less become an ally of Yuka's in her war against the northern officials.

The Ministry of Heaven was one that Yuka had not really seen as great a use for until she came to grasp the fact that the imperial palace was, in essence, one giant city. Maintenance of the Royal Palace meant more than just replacing roof-tiles and scrubbing floors. It was also maintaning the records in the library, making certain that the palace budget balanced, paying the staff, ordering all the neccessary goods and supplies to keep the place running; sheets and cadles, brushes, imperial armor and uniforms, paper, ink, soap,... it went on and on. Yuka was actually really good with numbers so she and the clerk-like ministers; the Taisai, the Sousai, the Shousha and Shikyuu (who were in charge of palace maintenence and uniforms respectively) all got along rather famously. Yuka even almost thought of them as friends because the work they gave her to sign off on and the few closet meetings required of her to keep thier ministry running were cake-walks compared to the rest of what she had to deal with. Numbers were easy, it was when people got involved that things got dicey.

If Yuka liked the Ministry of Heaven, then Taiki liked the Ministry of Spring, the ones in charge of ceremonies, rites, festivals and the school system. They were still left over from the king who had been on the throne before Gyousou. In fact, Taiki once told her that he had been responsible for the Daisouhaku (the Prime Minister of Spring) retaining his position. The Taiho actually had a great deal of personal authority with regards to rites, so that ministry was more or less sort of his homeground. Yuka did not dislike the man, though in truth he was a bit of a pain in her neck. The Daisouhaku had a taste for extravagance that had been encouraged by the previous king and the usurper. Left to his own devices, the Daisouhaku might just spend the slender Royal Treasury dry again on festivals and holidays. However, Yuka knew that with things as bad as they were, people needed some "bread and circuses" to relieve their troubles and stress; to give them hope for the future, so she always left money in the budget for the festivals and set aside nearly a weeks worth of time to argue with the minister about why they could not have this or that extravagance and talk him down to a reasonable festivals-expenditure for people to have fun with. The Daisouhaku needed careful watching because the wiley old man was a peerless manipulator and Taiki was easy to manipulate (sweet boy) with the phrase "the people would be so happy if...". Yuka had to keep a sharp watch on him, but fortunately had been able to win over (or bribe on occassion) enough of his staff that she got a pretty fair warning when he was up to something.

The ministries of Summer and Winter she always had gotten confused at first, because what thier titles were and what they were in charge of always seemed like they should be reversed. The Ministry of Summer,(Yuka thought of summer as a happy time where everyone was carefree,) was in charge of the military, and Yuka thought of the military as being very serious and rigid. Winter was serious business in Tai so she thought that winter should be for the military. The Ministry of Winter was in charge of economic affairs, and since that was something that Yuka discovered she had a talent for dealing with she always looked forward to meeting them the way a student would look forward to summer vacation.

The Ministry of Summer's Daishiba and Soushiba had been appointed by Asen. Fortunately when Yuka (in her nominal husband's name) had used the borrowed armies to reconquer the kingdom, nearly all of the soldiers and officers loyal to Asen had fought against her and been rounded up. Only the ministers, whom Yuka did not have the authority to fire or re-appoint them, (she could only execute them if they offered physical harm to the royal consort and they had at least been smart enough to treat thier new leader with kid gloves) remained in place. However, Yuka knew that they were enemies, as such she had used Taiho's power to reassign them to useless busywork in the palace (where she could keep an eye on them) making thier positions entirely ceremonial. In thier place, the trusted General Risai was the acting-Daishiba.

The Ministry of Winter (still a weird title because no-one really traded in winter) was the other minister who was firmly in Yuka and Taiki's camp. Yuka even sort of considered the Gishi (the minister in charge of reserching and developing new technologies, who had worked diligently with her to complete the skyway system, Tai's new infrastructure) and the Shoushi (who produced goods, and helped her spread the word and find markets for them) to be sort of friends, at least as much as Yuka could afford to consider any of the ministers her friends. It was by working with that particular ministry that Yuka had been able to bring economic stability enough to begin addressing some of the kingdom's other issues.

The end of the year the meeting was little more than a recap of the preceeding year with regards to each of the ministries and a "wish you luck and please take care" before the royal court went on a breif hiatus for the New Years holiday. The ministers would go home and see their families while Yuka and Taiki got to deal with the offical visit and report (in her case, diplomatic and political manuvering) of the Provincial Lords. She was not looking forward to that meeting, and it was supposed to happen tomorrow.

She was seated on a cushion on the smaller dais in front of the empty throne, slightly to the left. The taiho stood in his place to the fore and right of the empty throne and the six ministers and thier vice-ministers were arrayed out on either side of the blue carpet that rolled down the center of the lesser audience chamber. The meeting was held there because preparing the throne room with all of its attendant ceremonies was simply too much of a bother for what was in truth a minor event.

_ :To think,_: Yuka thought with a lifting feeling of optimism. _:This may be the last time I have to do this!:_

The king would recover quite quickly and Taiki had said that he and Risai were already bringing him up to speed on everything that had went on in Tai while he'd been out of commission. In a matter of a week Yuka might find herself freed from the burdens of limited rule.

_ :And after that... __**vacation**__!:_ she thought, practically wriggling with anticipation.

The daisouhaku of spring urged them all to find just a little more room in the royal budget to support a grand feast for the royal court on the day after New Years. Taiki was across from her, giving her puppy-eyes. He wanted that feast because the minister had promised how happy it was going to make everyone. Yuka knew better, that minister wanted that feast partly to increase his own prestige and partly because (unbeknownst to him, she was sure) several of his under secretaries had a rather profitable trade in graft and had urged him to urge the Taiho to increase thier festival budget. Yuka had tried to reasonably tell Taiki this but the sort of suspicion that came naturally to her was a closed book to him.

_ :Ah, corruption and graft, the true hallmarks of civilization!:_ Yuka though with an internal sigh.

"Minister," Yuka said turning to adress him with her serene smile. "We have discussed this matter previously. While it makes Taiho and I both glad to hear that you wish everyone to have plenty of fun this season, I am afraid that there is simply no room in the palace budget for the additions to the ceremonies you wish to make. If you do not believe me you are free to consult with the minister of Heav-"

Due to her inattention and the general hubbub of the season, ministers and their entourages getting prepared to leave, the province lords and htier entourages arriving and getting situated, the palace prepared for the various rites and ceremonies that were part of the New Year, Yuka had been so busy that she'd relaxed her usual vigilance. Thus she was not prepared and was caught completely by surprise when a sudden attack occured without warning.

The cavernous throne room abruptly erupted into violence when several wild youma, a vicious one about the size of a lynx, smaller winged one with four legs and twice that many sharp talons, and a large skinny one like a lizard on its hind legs but with a maw more like a crocodile, all burst into the room. A nearby candelabra full of burning candles fell onto some nearby hangings, causing a fire race up the cloth and spread. The ministers scattered, screaming and running in panic while the gaurds descended to subdue the creatures and put out the fire. Taiki was frozen in fear at all the frightening things happening around him and Yuka rushed over to push him behind the throne away from danger.

"It's alright," she reassured him with a smile, prepared to wait with him and keep him calm until all the pandemonium had passed. "Everything is-"

Yuka only had the widening of his eyes and the quick intake of breath to warn her and she reacted before he could even get out a shout of warning. She spun around, pulling her "decorative" court fan out of her sash to block the downward swing of the sword. There had been attempts on her life before this, and also on Taiki's life as well, so both she and Risai had decided that Yuka should never go anywhere unarmed, even to bed. Yuka had developed an image of herself as a "mere consort" a somewhat weak woman who was too delicate to real fighting, carrying a dagger or a sword would clash with her image so Risai had trained her in the use of the fan as a weapon as well as unarmed combat. She had several special fans, each accessorized for different outfits, but all of them with metal blades and woven wire mesh for paper in them. The attacker was dressed in dark but non-descript clothing and his face was covered by a wrapped cowl so that all she could see were his eyes.

He attacked quickly, lunging at Yuka with a stabbing maniver that she easily deflected with the flat of her fan. Rather than close on him, Yuka attempted a knee-strike to his extended knee, hoping to unbalance him. He rolled with the balance but recovered to swing around at her in a slicing pattern from the side. Yuka snapped open the fan and pressed her hand against the wire-mesh side "catching" the blow. Instead of engaging her for his next manuver he leapt past her and Yuka saw her mistake almost too late; his true target was Taiki, and she had allowed him to manuver herself out of the way for him to strike at her friend. Quickly, Yuka kicked up into the air and landed on his back, encumbering him with her many layered court robes so that he had to struggle with her skirts blinding him.

"Taiki, run!" Yuka commanded.

Taiki's clothes shredded as he assumed his kirin form and bolted for the nearest window, crashing through and letting in the cold air of night. His primary prey escaped, the attacker decided that Yuka would do just as well for his purposes. He stabbed his sword downward to pin her sleeve but Yuka wrapped the silk of her wrap-over-skirt around his blade and pulled hard on it, hoping for a disarm. Another swing of his sword sliced off her belt she caught it his reverse-swing with her fan before it could do lasting harm. He lunged again and Yuka just barely managed to dodge back out of the way of the sword, through her clothes were beginning to come unraveled around her.

_ :Curse the imperial court and thier inconvenient fashion for elaborate, many layered robes!:_

Yuka pulled out a hairpin from her elaborate cioffure, tested it for balance and threw it at him. Risai had armed her with throwing weapons disgised as hair-pins. The attacker batted it out of the way and lunged in again, Yuka dodged backwards but luck and the terrain were against her this time, the hem of her robe caught on part of the stairwell and she lost her balace, falling backwards but the uneven steps made her attempt at a roll go wrong and she wound up on her back. The blade descended and she pulled her fan up to block... too slow! The blade bit painfully into her right shoulder.

_ :He's in range for an attack!:_ Yuka thought triumphantly even through the pain of her wound.

Her left foot shot up to catch him under the chin while her right hand grabbed his sword-arm by the forearm and she used the momentum of his downward stab to roll him over onto his back. In a practiced, lightning quick movement she had him pinned with another of her shapened hairsticks at his throat.

In the breif time she had been engaged with her attacker, the throne room had filled with palace guards. The youma were dispensed with and her attacker was quickly surrounded. Sadly when Yuka got off him, before they could restrain him to be questioned, the attacker took his own life. A whole contingent of guards personally escorted Yuka back to her quarters across the imperial garden from the Emperor's rooms. The spot had been chosen by Risai in the interests of defensibility.

"Your Grace!" one of her room maids said, when she saw her mistress limping into the room (the fall on the steps had bruised her thigh) with her robes and hair disheveled and herself holding the remains of her obi to her chest to stop the bleeding on her shoulder. The hue and cry spread about the room as more of the younger maids saw her in such a state. Some of the older maids who had been there longer had seen her in the days of the reconquista, when she had fought regularly and just as regularly been injured. Seeing that thier mistress was pained but not unduly concernd, the older ones calmed the others down by ordering a bath and hot drinks and hot bricks for the bed and some should send for the healer. Risai appeared at the door a moment later, another contingent of guards with her.

"Your grace," she said with her customary calm efficiency. "Captain Mizuru has reported that you were injured, are you well?"

The healer showed up hard on Risai's heels and shoved her way past to examine the wound. A medical kit was quickly produced and the lady-doctor stripped Yuka down without a thought to her modesty and began the cleanse and banadge the wound.

"It's relatively shallow for a stab wound though the edges are abraided," the healer reported calmly. "There is no sign of any of the poisons which work on immortals, so once I cleanse and bandage the wound she should recover and heal quickly after a good nights rest."

"Were there accomplices?" Yuka questioned next as the good healer bandaged her up.

"The guard has already begun a full-scale sweep of that section of the palace and there are partols in the air outside to make certain no-one escapes down the mountainside. The staff has orders to report any suspicious activity."

"Have watchers put on the provincial lords," Yuka added. "For their safety of course."

Risai nodded, understanding, by now, Yuka's double-talk. They of course suspected that one or more of them had been responsible for the attempt, and no doubt a thorough search of thier quarters and a headcount of their entourage would quickly ensue unless they caught any accomplices trying to escape.

"Already done, your grace," she replied, Yuka nodded, more and more, her orders were superfluous. "There have to have been more than just the one attacker, youma like that are not so easy to handle that a single person could bcapture, transport and then set loose three of them that size unaided. We'll find them and then nail whoever's responsible for setting them on you and the Taiho."

Yuka nodded, confident in the general's abilities. Sadly this was not thier first time at the rodeo for either of them, there had been other attempts and that had made thier system all the more effcient for it.

"Was there any attempt to breach the imperial chambers?" She asked next.

That had always been a major concern. While the king was held in sleep, he was helpless. He relied on Risai and the palace guard to preserve his life, for all it would take would be one assassin to get through and the king's life would be ended. The emperor's chambers had a round-the-clock guard of those soldiers that Risai herself would trust with her life, the few men and women whose loyalty was absolute and unquestioned. They would have been perhaps better used to shore up the various governmental positions that could use a few good, loyal men but it was commonly agreed that defending the kings life took the priority.

"Both shifts of guards have been roused and are currently in place around Seiden palace. His majesty is as safe as we-"

Risai was cut off by a noise from the doorway, a transformed Taiki in kirin form with his king leaning heavily against his side appeared in her doorway. Yuka reacted as any maiden would react to a strange man entering her quarters. She screamed a loud, surprised "kyaaaa!" and ducked down, throwing the nearest object at the intuder and covering herself.

The king blinked for a long moment and then said

"My apologies, i had not thought you would be... in a state. My kirin was worried so i came to see what had raised the alarm."

"It is not a problem, your majesty," Risai replied.

"Says you!" Yuka snapped.

The king let out a weak chuckle at that and politely exited the chamber. The healer finished her work and Yuka was placed into the hands of the maids when Risai realized the impropriety of reporting to the one she had become accustomed to seeing whenever disasters like that one occured, instead of her rightful master. Force of habit.


	6. Veritas Odit Moras

Gyousou Saku looked back at his trusted general in aghast shock.

"An assassination attempt in the royal palace?!" he said in disbelief.

Not even in the worst of the civil wars under the old king had anyone ever managed to breach the defenses of the imperial palace. Such things were more a matter of historical record than attempted within living memory (and some of the court officials had living memories that went back for hundreds of years).

"Your majesty," Risai said, a little apologetically. "With the current turbulent state of affairs in the kingdom such attempts have become... quite frequent. The Taiho still makes a good target to strike at, for it is well known that kirin are pacifists. The Royal Consort has made a great many enemies, or rather inherited them from Asen, and made their enmity toward Her Grace in particular quite violent."

Gyousou frowned, not certain he'd heard right. _He_ was not married, he had no Royal Consort.

"General Risai," the voice of the girl who had been attacked said from the sliding doorway as she entered the room.

He and Taiki and Risai were currently in a sitting room in his own rooms in Seiden Palace. A servant had brought tea and several things to eat while Gyousou, feeling much improved from his nap earlier which had gone a long ways toward restoring his strength, sat down to hear to whole of the messy business before him.

"Have any of the four shuukou made any particular moves?" the girl asked as she came in and sat down.

"They have been quiet Your Grace," the general replied.

"Figures," she muttered, helping herself to some tea and steamed buns. "They _know_ we're bound to suspect them, if they weren't already, they'll be on their best behavior. Still, we might get lucky and one of them might slip up, have your people look sharp."

The way that the girl who was Taiki's friend had asked and Risai had answered spoke louder than words of a long association. It was nearly exactly the same way that he and Risai would speak to each other as king and general. Also, the way she came in and sat down comfortably said she was accustomed to moving around freely. As the king, he knew everyone of rank within the palace, or he had, but he didn't know her. Which begged the question once again...

"Who are you?" he demanded of the wounded girl.

Yuka looked over at Taiki with an incredulous look on her face.

"You didn't _tell_ him?!" she demanded, sounding dismayed.

"I didn't have time," Taiki protested, raising his hands.

"Oh..." Yuka looked back over at Gyousou, and her expression changed to one that he couldn't quite read. She looked embarrassed and said

"Awk-ward."

The three other denizens of the room all looked at each other, clearly waiting for someone else to speak, and just as clearly not wanting to be the one to address the subject.

"Well?" he demanded, a little irritated.

The girl decided to grasp the bull by the horns and straightened with a small wince to say

"As I hope you've gathered by now, Asen's coup of Tai left the government, the military and the countryside in shambles. Taiki was transported back to hourai in order to escape the violence in the palace. Six years later, after I had crossed over to this world with Keiki and Youko, which is a whole _other_ story, and was sent back home, I found him there and we became friends."

"I didn't really remember who I really was or where I'd come from, I only felt like I missed something important," Taiki added in.

"Enki, Youko and I managed to get him back to this world where he belongs but there was still a usurper in power over Tai and the king was still missing at that time."

Taiki and Yuka took turns telling him of how they had found him, and the different things that had been tried to remove the Chyoukoku from his body, and how at last even the Oracle of the Jasper Mist Gyoukuyou could only promise an end to the sleep… but at such a far time away that it was not useful. Fifty years would be too long for the throne to sit vacant with Asen at the helm, and Taiki would certainly die by shitsudo by then. Then they covered how En and Kei volunteered their help to oust Ansen from power with their armies if _someone_ could be found to lead them on the sleeping king's behalf.

"I physically _could not_ do it Gyousou-sama," Taiki said apologetically. "I tried, but the violence and bloodshed were too much for me."

"It is alright," Gyousou comforted his friend, feeling terrible all over again that his kirin should have known such suffering, when Gyousou had sworn to himself that he would always protect him and Taiki would never undergo shitsudo.

"It was the king of En who found a loophole," Risai said, smiling a little as if very amused by something.

The fact that the girl, Yuka's, cheeks were bright red and she looked like she rather wished the floor would swallow her whole was not lost on Gyousou. He quickly put two and two together and came up with the right answer.

"Ah, the Lady Orihime solution," he surmised with a nod.

He was not unfamiliar with history, naturally, any good general studied the movements of generals past as well as creating his own way around difficulties. He knew of the story about the Royal Consort who had saved her husband's life by fleeing with the Taiho to beg the aid of a neighboring kingdom. She had been able to lead the troops in his name while the king was pinned down in the palace by the rebels.

"But we are not married," he pointed out next.

"The Taiho, in the incapacitation of his or her ruler, has the authority to manage the Royal Household, even including adding or deleting names from the family registry," Risai said, looking amused by the young lady's obvious discomfort.

"My name was added on to your registry during a ceremony presided over by Taiki," was Yuka's murmured reply, as she colored even more deeply in apparent _profound_ mortification.

"A proxy marriage," Gyousou nodded, appreciating the neat wrap up of all the loose ends.

They got what they needed (a person to head the army and retake the kingdom) as well as a way to access and utilize some royal authority without breeching Heaven's Law. It was clever, and the girl was very brave to have made herself a target in order to help her friend.

When he looked over at her, she sort of looked her physical age right then, which would have been the same as his kirin's, about sixteen or so. She looked embarrassed by the situation and understandably nervous of him, and abruptly he felt a bit sorry for her.

:_I imagine it's one thing to agree to be "married" when one does not ever have to worry about seeing the spouse, but it probably feels entirely different now that I'm awake and alive. Add to that the fact that she and Taiki have been doing Heaven knows what in the meantime with my royal authority based on the fact of that proxy marriage and she'd probably be understandably concerned about my reaction_.:

Even with the nice court-robe, Gyousou didn't think that the girl had spent all of her time as queen pro-tem enjoying herself by living in luxury. The bandages around her chest and the fact that Risai acknowledged she'd made enemies were an obvious corroboration to the story that she'd joined up to stabilize the kingdom and preserve her friend's life.

The bandages wrapped around her from the recent fight were peeking out from under her more simple robes and they were dotted red in some places where the blood tried to leak through. Kouri was clearly trying not to be ill and Yuka covered them up with a solicitous look at her kirin friend.

:_In order to spare her further worry or embarrassment, perhaps it is best that I let the matter of our apparent nuptials drop for now, at least until I am more aware of the situation.:_

"Sorry Kaname," she said to him. "You and Risai and your king can get caught up, I'll retire for the night so you don't get uncomfortable."

"No, it's alright," he said bravely, though he was looking a bit green.

"Don't be silly," Yuka insisted. "I know the sight of blood bothers you. I'll catch up with you in the morning, this should be mostly healed by then."

The girl, well actually if she had been around as long as Risai and Taiki had told him he'd been out of commission she wouldn't actually be a girl by now, bowed gracefully and exited the room with a pace that was swift but somehow managed to look unhurried. Gyuousou looked after her in nonplussed amusement. Taiki tried to suppress a smile but a soft titter escaped. It was joined by Risai's quiet chuckle as the two of them exchanged a speaking glance.

"You wouldn't think of it to know her would you?" Risai said to Taiki sharing some private joke.

"I know, right?" taiki replied with a small laugh. "Everyone else thinks she's this cool, aloof ice-queen. It's so funny to see her blush like a schoolgirl."

"It doesn't happen often," Risai agreed.

Taiki turned to him.

"I hope you're not mad. Yuka only did it because she was worried I'd get sick if I stayed in exile, and she stuck around to make sure I didn't get sick because Tai is-" the kirin cut himself off, aware as ever of a possible sensitive subject.

"A mess," Gyousou said for him, putting the issue right out where everyone could see it.

An uncomfortable silence fell across the room. Gyousou silently signaled that Risai should leave and attend to what needed attending to, and he would meet with her later.

The king of Tai silently ran over in his mind how best to handle the situation of reassuring his kirin that all was well. Right from the very beginning Taiki had always required special handling. Despite the fact that he was a rare and wonderful kirin, and that Tai was blessed to have him, he'd always lacked confidence.

:_Come to that, I wonder how he has been able to handle the pressures of ruling a kingdom without a king_,: Gyousou thought idly while he chose his next words carefully. :_By nature kirin's are too soft-hearted for the kinds of decisions required for rule, that is why kings are chosen, so it's clear he could not have done it on his own. It must be the girl. I'll inquire more deeply about the situation from Risai later on. For now, I suppose it's best to simply address his fears directly and reassure him they are groundless. I know he will trust in me at least that much_.:

"So, you and your friend have been trying to rule the kingdom while I was under the spell of the Chyoukoku," he said gently, making certain his tone was soft and in no way threatening or chiding.

Taiki looked over at him with tears in his eyes, clearly upset at the thought that his king might admonish him for trying to do the job that only Gyousou was meant to do.

"I am _sorry_, Kouri," he said softly, gently brushing his kirins black hair back with a large hand.

Taiki peered up at him out of the corner of his eye, hopeful.

"I wanted to be a good king for you. I wanted to give to you a stable rule so you would never worry about... getting sick. I never wanted you to have to suffer as you have, or to have to face the things you've had to face. I am sorry. So sorry."

"Gyousou-sama!" his kirin reached over to comfort his king, who was ashamed that he who was supposed to be the pillar of his kingdom had been defeated and all of his wishes for the future utterly destroyed. They took comfort in the fact that, after all was said and done, there was still just enough to work with.


	7. Causa latet, vis est notissima

**causa latet, vis est notissima (The cause is hidden, but the result is well known)**

There was still a great deal that needed to be done yet in order to prepare for the meeting of the nine provincial lords the next evening. Yuka busied herself in her office with her secretaries putting the final touches into place for the rest of that evening. Her ability to focus in completely on her work helped take her mind of that awkward and horribly embarrassing revelation to the man she'd been married in name to for the last several decades that he was the victim of a proxy marriage decided without his consent while he'd been sleeping.

:_Truthfully, I thought he'd be mad,:_ she thought to herself. :_Or at least a little embarrassed by it, or maybe irritated that we did it without asking him. But he just sort of... accepted it.:_

He'd just sort of nodded in a way that said 'well that makes sense' and more or less moved on. Yuka wasn't sure what to think. In an ordinary encounter with a strange minister, Yuka would have thought that maybe he was planning how best to use the information against her later, but this was Taiki's king and he had said that Gyousou Saku was not like that.

:_I think Taiki would say that he said nothing else in order to save me from further embarrassment,:_ Yuka thought with a small feeling of cautious optimism.

The maids in her room were giggling and tittering about something when she went in to prepare for bed. Yuka was a somewhat frequent visitor to the sleeping kings chamber, but only entirely because Taiki was a frequent visitor and that was the easiest (not to mention safest) place to find him.

:_Those maids have this great tragic and romantic love story built up in their minds about how I'm supposedly such a faithful and loving wife, waiting patiently for the day my beloved will rise again_,: Yuka thought with an internal snort of irony at the joke that probably only she thought was funny.

Truthfully, she didn't really have the heart to disabuse them of the notion and crush their romantic dreams. After all, much of her own authority as Royal Consort rested on her supposed faithful devotion to her husband, so it was a politically astute maneuver to allow that particular rumor to continue.

:_Unlike in songs and romantic tales it is quite impossible to fall in love with a sleeping person_,: Yuka thought. :_One might as well try to fall in love with a doll. Feelings take interaction, or at least enough movement for admiration, in order to grow.:_

Yuka's experience with the area of "love" was low-level, despite that she'd once had a boyfriend. She and Asano had been more like 'friends who really like each other' rather than passionate lovers. They'd tried kissing and had once even gone a little bit farther but there had been a basic incompatibility between them when it came to the way they approached loveplay. The part of the problem was that he had been too easy-going to put the moves on her, and too deferential when it came time to push things forward a bit. Yuka, for her part, had been so self-contained from all the bullying that she'd had a hard time letting anyone past her defenses and _did_ require an initial push but to get her to open up and to reassure her that she was worthy of it. The easy-going Ikuya Asano did not have the courage or, oddly, the confidence to make the necessary pursuit.

:_And then I was married just after I heard what happened to him_,: she thought. :_So it was easy to push people away and keep the necessary distance that an acting queen would require in order to build up a reputation that was above reproach.:_

It had been lonely but she'd been so busy, and attempts to get at her by any means possible had been so frequent, it was probably better for her that she had decided that the ice-queen route was the best way to go. An assassin would surely have attempted to seduce her if it had been possible.

:_Besides that_,: she thought. :_Politically speaking, it is impossible to maintain the fiction of a faithful and loyal consort only acting on behalf of her husband if I'm taking lovers left and right. My opponents would have surely discovered an affair and used it as a pretext to get me out of thier way. No, if I was going to play the royal consort, I knew when I signed on that I was going to have to be as above reproach a Queen Elizabeth.:_

And aside of that, Yuka's parent's marriage had been destroyed by infidelity, so she was serious about marriage vows. As long as she remained bound by her oaths, whether they were one-sided, by proxy or whatever, she intended to honor them. The fact that it worked out better for her and her nature was a solitary one that naturally leaned to facing the world alone just made it easier.

_:I'm just glad he decided not to make an issue of it,:_ Yuka thought as she settled into bed.


	8. feci quad potui, facian meloira potentes

**Chapter 8: feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes (I have done what I could; let those who can do better)**

Reading over the "notes" that the girl, Taiki and Risai had taken for him over the time that he'd been out of commission was rather like sticking a knife in his heart and twisting it around. Maybe his kingdom was technically stable, but it was certainly not prospering! There were two civil wars being waged further dividing an already splintered royal authority. First was the more obvious war between Taiki, Yuka and the unreplacable provincial governors of Ba, Bun, Jou, and Ie provinces.

_:I don't know whether to admire her or be far more concerned that she and Taiki decided to take their struggles against them off the battlefield.:_

On one hand he could see the sense in it. All three note-takers had made it clear that Yuka and Taiki worked together in tandem, and that the girl felt obliged to listen to the kirin's wishes. Taiki clearly wished that people would not be made to suffer from war. That wish would have necessitated an armistice.

_:I do not know that I agree with their decision, however,:_ Gyousou thought as he looked at the population charts.

The north had been all but _emptied_ of civilian life. He knew that that meant that many farms would have gone fallow, industries and resources would have been abandoned along with towns and trading posts needed to run them. He understood that this, too, would have been part of the economic stranglehold that the girl was slowly weaving around their necks, but it was going to have serious impacts on the future, especially in those places most affected by it. Risai had urged that they should assemble the army and simply go in and wipe out the opposition, this would have secured the kingdom under their rule. However, Taiki and Yuka had placed their priority on getting the situation with the youma rampaging around the countryside under control.

_:While not technically the __**wrong**__ decision,:_ Gyousou thought. _:A quick, decisive victory against them would have been better, I think, than this protracted proxy-war.:_

Added into the economic conflict was the fact that the ministries were divided. The efficient, decisive system of able and trustworthy ministers that Gyousou had so painstakingly put into place was gone.

_:That hurts,:_ he thought with a wince.

He'd worked so _hard_ at it too. His court and the six ministries under him had been like a well-oiled machine! But all things considered, having two "bad" ministries out of six, when one took into account that the ministries themselves had been inherited from a usurper, he supposed was not so bad.

_:Especially when the pair nominally ruling the throne have no authority to appoint new ministers,:_ he reminded himself. Gyousou of course would have sacked the ministers of spring, summer and fall for their insubordination, as well as the choushi for failure to report misbehavior of his fellow officials, but if they had no choice but to work with what they had and make it do, he supposed some political struggle was inevitable.

Taiki's notes were incomplete or rather, they had clearly been written with every attempt made to spare his king's feelings and paint a series of events as "not so bad, really". The notes that Risai took were typically military, dry facts about tactics and troop movements and the augmentation of resources. They were useful but pertained only to her area of expertise.

The notes the girl left him however didn't spare him any of the gorey details. It even sort of felt like she was (justifiably) admonishing him for what she'd had to put up with. However, aside from her occasional irritated "why won't you wake the hell up, damn you!" she covered everything from the reasons she had used her plan to stabilize the economy as a way to manipulate the population away from the northern province's all as part of her slowly tightening noose around the throats of the lords and ministers she could not replace without royal authority, to the various personalities she faced both in the ministries and in the government officials she had been left with.

Gyousou was left with the impression of an incisive and cunning mind, but one with a slightly disturbing tendency toward isolation and a "her against the world" mentality. Risai had marked it up to a comment let slip by the regnant queen of Kei (who was reportedly an old friend and schoolmate of the girl) apparently she'd been bullied in the past. While it had surely toughened her skill at observation of interpersonal relationships and analysis of personalities, it had not made her inclined to open up to people it seemed.

_:I'm inclined to agree with Risai's assessment of her,:_ Gyousou thought after a long moment to study the first book she'd left him._ :She's not much on military tactics, but when it comes to handling politics and the economy, the girl is as powerful as a general in the field.:_

There was no doubt that the Royal Consort pro-tem had a canny and cunning mind. What worried him about her was the way she seemed to see everyone else but Taiki as a potential enemy. It didn't seem very healthy.

_:Then again, that's probably one reason why she's still alive.:_

Risai had also detailed the attempts to get at the Taiho and the Royal Consort. Taiki was thankfully oblivious to many of them for either Risai had caught them in time or Yuka had worked with her to gloss them over so that the kirin didn't notice that an attempt had been made. What Yuka was apparently not aware of (for her chief of security hid it from her) was that there were three times as many attacks on the girl's life than were ever attempted on the Taiho. The reason why was stated simply.

"They want to get rid of the impediment to royal authority and autonomy in the form of the Consort. If they assassinate Taiho then a new one is born on a Riboku and they have to worry about a new dynasty coming in. They get rid of Yuka and they can make the Taiho into their puppet. As long as she remains strong against them, then they cannot rule as they wish and they have someone blocking them at every turn."

Gyousou turned back to assessing the sory state of his royal court. Out of his sankou, the three advisors which consisted of Taifu, Taishi and Taiho (which was a different rank, confusingly enough, than that saiho-Taiho, Taiki) there were none of them that had survived the purges that Asen had made on the upper ranks. In the interim while he'd been sleeping, Taiki took over the official duties of all three advisors and Yuka had more or less taken on the duties of the chousai in order to curb the excesses of the chousai that was officially appointed (still left over from the reign of the previous king, Kyou-ou). Apparently, since there was no king to settle a question once and for all, Yuka and Taiki had to work things out between them until they could come to a consensus that they could both agree on.

_:That is another reason why so many of the situations that require swift decisive action are left to languish.:_

However, not all of them stagnated in a mire of bureaucracy and indecisiveness. Between Yuka and Risai, they had created a small team of elite stealth fighters, ones they could deploy to gather information or make incisive covert strikes. Yuka didn't officially know about them and Risai didn't officially report about them, but in times when the northern shuukou were on the move the two women became awfully fond of taking tea and playing shoji in the garden (a cover for their true activities of circumventing the next movements by the Shuukou).

While an adept and cunning politician, Yuka relied _entirely_ upon Risai's military advice and the poor general was near-exhausted from handling both the internal security of the palace, the guards stationed around the five provinces under Golden Rule to slay the youma _and_ the covert intelligence gathering and tactical strikes on the rebellious shuukou of the north to deal with.

_:Risai is doing the job of three generals all at once,:_ Gyousou thought with dismayed admiration.

He felt humbled by the way those still loyal to him (or to Taiki, in the case of the girl) had pulled together and pitched in to maintain damage control on a volatile situation.

Risai, it was reported to him by an amused member of his personal staff, spent the morning chasing Lady Yuka around the salle. Her reason was that Yuka should never have been injured by a lone assailant, so she must have been so preoccupied with her political maneuvering that she had neglected to keep honed sharp the skills that would keep her alive. Thus the general had ordered the royal consort stuffed into her "practice robes" (the older, cut up and worn garments they used to keep her in the habit of being able to move defensibly even when mummified in several layers of silk) and proceeded to run her through drills both armed and unarmed, then sparring matches, and finally escape scenarios.

Gyousou knew of this because Taiki fretted over it. In truth, the necessity of it bothered the king as well as his kirin. Taiki knew that his duty was to escape and stay alive. Gyousou, however, felt his pride was further cut by the fact that _any_ of this was necessary _at all_. Not only was it bad enough that a girl would have to step into the place he should have been able to occupy in the first place (and hold it for longer than most actual anointed kings reigns lasted, despite near-impossible odds and monumental difficulties) it was made just that much worse that she should be attacked inside the royal palace, inside the imperial throne room, at a time when he was awake but not strong enough to protect anyone due to his recent illness. It _really_ bothered him.

_:It won't bother me for much longer_,: he promised himself as he rose out of bed and managed to walk all the way to the other room without having to lean on anyone or anything to aid him in his weakness. He was regaining his strength. Soon he would be back up to fighting trim.

_:And then...:_ he promised himself. _:Those who have had their way for far too long will find themselves with greater problems to worry about than avoiding what few means the girl has found to control their excesses:_

Yes, the revelation that he had a wife of necessity was, as the girl herself had put it, _awkward_. However that awkwardness on his part did not stem from the reasons she probably surmised. To Gyousou Saku, Tai's famous general and the whirlwind king, the awkwardness about the situation came from the very fact that it was necessary _at all_. That he had failed his kingdom so badly that some innocent schoolgirl and his own sweet kirin had been forced to step in and shore up such a situation was a mark of deep shame for him. He was not taking it well.

Taiki and Risai both had urged, however, that he study the situation a little bit more first before wading in and making changes. The reports only covered the high points after all, and it would be wiser to get a better sense of the terrain before he tried to march his troops over it, so to speak. Gyousou understood well the importance of reconnaissance, so he had agreed to their recommendation to attend the meeting of the shuukou that evening but remain hidden to watch the proceedings. he disliked that he was not quite up to strength yet and was forced by necessity to remain in recovery for a while yet. Even he knew that it would be still dangerous to attempt to control the willful shuukou if he wasn't at full strength.


	9. Audaciter calumnare,semper aliquid haert

**Audaceter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret (slander boldly, something always sticks)**

A.N. One of my personal, very favorite chapters.

_:It's hard to believe it's been so long since I've sat on the throne,:_ Gyousou thought as he dressed himself in his back imperial robes. _:To me, I just put this on yesterday.:_

He found himself seated, hidden behind one of the grand inlaid screens spread out like wings on either side behind the empty throne in one of the lesser audience chambers of Hakkei Palace. The room before him had been set up for a meeting of the nine shuukou: nine individual tables had been spread out in a crescent centered on the dais and the empty throne. The shuukou were seated roughly by geography, with Taiki in the center of them as the lord of Zui province. The northern shuukou were to the left and the southern appointed temporary officials for provinces under Golden Rule were to the right. Gyousou was still surprised that the only familiar face among them was Taiki, all of the other governors had been replaced.

A gong sounded and majordomo announced that the Royal Consort, acting as mediator for the meeting on behalf of his majesty, would enter. Yuka, walked in from a door off to the left side. She wasn't dressed in black imperial robes, but rather in a more colorful civilian costume, though it was clearly the sort of costume and empress would wear. It was a clever though risky choice. She acted on behalf of royal authority but she did not actually posses any, and her clothes were undeniable proof of that. Still, the robes said that she was a person that could not be touched. She looked very poised, as though she had an unquestionable right to be there when in truth her right to be there was quite questionable. Her manner however was intimidating enough that even her enemies skirted the issue.

The officials bowed, and the bamboo screen hiding the emperor's dais was raised half way, to signify that the court without a king enthroned was in session. Yuka stood before the screened dais, faced off with the nine officials. Taiki gave her an encouraging gesture but Gyousou knew that Yuka would not be able to acknowledge it, for she was in the opening stages of nothing less than a major battle in an on going war.

They got the New Years greetings and the ceremonial toasts with special sake out of the way first… but it started right in after that.

"Your Grace," said Yujun Kou from Ie Province, one of the northern ones at the corner farthest to the west. "I and my fellow governors of the north officially protest your economic sanctions on our trade of natural resources. Not only is it unfair for you to show such a marked preference for the southern provinces, but it is also quite out of your authority. You overstep yourself."

"Your Eminence," Yuka addressed him with cool politeness. "The sanctions on your trade stand only because you foolishly insist on trading contraband along with resources. Not only do you dabble in trade on the black market, but you use the funds from that trade to finance your own private armies to the detriment of the kingdom."

"Such false accusations, your grace," Saku Jin of Bun Province interjected smoothly. "Praytell what is the nature of this contraband you allege."

"I speak of nothing less than the unauthorized and illegal production of touki, spelled weapons capable of killing an immortal as well as a youma. That as you know, only the ministry of winter is allowed to produce winter blades. Furthermore, any touki produced by said ministry are to be sold only to state-authorized weapons dealers."

"You have no proof of such shocking allegations!" Sei Aikara of Jou Province, snapped in reply.

"Gentlemen let us be frank," Yuka replied with cool authority. "If I had no proof, I would not have made them."

Gyousou couldn't repress a smile and noted that on the right side of the table the various "temporary" appointments for the executed ministers were suppressing smirks of various natures.

"On the dates of the fourth day of the Rat through the seventh day of the Snake were produced five bespelled swords from the forges in the town of Gyuten in Jou. On the dates of the ninth day of Horse throught the seventh day of Ram the forge in the town of Soushi in the province of Ie produced three daggers, a sword, and a kefar. The names of the smiths were Tei Teppei and Soushi Dai. Those swords were smuggled into a shipment of cloth bound for your private port cities of Shiba and Doushin under the auspices of the merchant Kel Rankin who was paid a sum roughly equivalent to fifty gold ryous to turn a blind eye to the on and offloading of certain particular packages."

"There are no records of such-" Saku of Bun burst out.

"Of course there are no official record of such," Yuka mocked coolly. "But the numbers never lie. Now as I was saying. The contraband weapons were then placed in the hold of the ship the Fuujin, under the aegis of Captain Sou Shindai, and forethwith transported to the port of Sekai in Ryuu. Once there the weapons were offloaded into the care of an arms-smuggler by the name of Seichi Hanamodo and then were paid the handsome sum of six thousand gold ryous each for the swords, three thousand for the daggers and seven thousand for the kefar, which I assume was a specialty item and ordered on commission. Said payment was transferred back to the capitol palaces of the respective provinces the weapons came from and was entered onto the official budget under... oh lets see," Yuka pulled a small scroll from her sleeve and examined it. "Ah yes, here it is, "harvest surplus." Very clever. Especially when the lands that were supposedly so fruitful this year have each been abandoned by the families that traditionally hold them, and there has been no record either of increase in farm implements or a local government program to farm using the militia."

"That is an utterly unfounded accusation!" The governor of Jou replied. "You have no proof of these wild allegations being anything other than unfounded rumor."

"The cargo manifests of the ship would suggest otherwise. While it is true that the weapons are not labeled as being touki, I do have it on good authority from one of the purchasers who made the transaction in gold for that lovely kefar that the weapon is most effective. See?"

Yuka pulled up a paper bearing written amounts and the royal seal of En (of all things!).

"The buyer says he's not quite happy with the quality of the work and would like a refund."

The men she faced were all adept politicians of the first order, and none of them so much as twitched when she produced the solid proof of her words and their deeds. The dance had begun in earnest.

"Except, your Grace," Sei of Jou replied with smooth, smug aplomb. "That such weapons were not, in fact contraband at all. Myself, and the other lords can account for each of them through official channels and the weapons production was in fact authorized by the Ministry of Winter. We can even produce documents to that effect, showing that the production and distribution were all above board."

Which only meant that they could forge documents or bribe an official to do the forging for them.

"Even if you do have papers from the ministry of winter for those touki," Yuka replied. "The sale of touki to foreign powers is prohibited, as you know. Furthermore, those weapons can only be sold by court sanctioned weapons dealers under the direct authority of the ministry of winter. Add to that, part of the sale of each weapon goes to the royal treasury. None of my accountants have received such a payment."

"What your accountants do behind your back is your concern to deal with," Sei, replied just as smooth as cream.

"And that does not even address why, if your eminences felt that their sale of the touki were all above board, that you felt the need to list your percentage of the payment under false pretences. The sale of those touki were entered into your official budget registries falsely, so if nothing else you have certainly misrepresented and falsified your official budgets."

She waited, locking gazes with each of them with a sharp poise, waiting for their next answer. Gyousou thought that perhaps she did indeed have them and they would be forced to admit their mistake and put themselves in the hands of official justice, but unfortunately the men who had continued to successfully wage a war of attrition against the Royal Consort were too poised and wily to be caught out on such a detail.

"Your Grace is most perceptive in that my fellow governors and I did indeed report the profits of our lawful trade as something other than what they had been, however a closer examination of the situation would have brought to light our entirely benevolent reasons for doing so," Tori Korosai of Bun Province spoke.

"Oh?" Yuka said with her, clearly practiced benign and serene smile out in place. "Please enlighten me, you have my full attention."

"As you know, due to various circumstances, our provinces produce even less food than they normally would. The decrease in population has not only decreased consumption but production as well. Unfortunately, as your Grace is well aware, fielding an army of any sort, much less one the size needed to keep the peace in our lands, is an expensive undertaking and-"

"If that is so," Yuka interjected, her smile brightening. "Then please allow myself on behalf of my husband to send relief troops to help alleviate your difficulties with the youma. I would be pleased to be able to be of service to my dear shuukou of the north."

They knew she was both telling the truth and lying. Gyousou and Risai both exchanged a mutual look of amusement. Risai actually tried hard to contain a snicker. Certainly the Royal Consort would like to send in troops, and probably even to help deal with the youma, but she'd also simply _love_ a pretext to station her own soldiers at key points for both observation and later deployment.

"Your offer of assistance is generosity itself your grace, but I could not in good conscience strain your husband's resources any further than they already are," the man replied, then his gaze sharpened in challenge. "After all, though it requires certain measures to field, our provincial armies are more than capable of crushing anything in their path."

That was a threat, and everyone in the room knew it. Gyousou's back muscles tightened and his sword-hand twitched. That provincial lord had just outright challenged royal authority.

"After all, in size and in strength," Saku Jin, the shuukou of Bun province added where the governor of Ie left off. "You must be aware that our forces are superior to yours."

"What an interesting observation, Jin-shuukou," Yuka replied in a voice as smooth and slick as ice. "Truly the youma of the high north must fearsome creatures to warrant the increased numbers in military personnel."

"Perhaps, your Grace," Tori Korosai rejoined with a strangely _intent_ look at her. "It may be my turn to extend an offer of assistance to yourself. I have heard that you were attacked the evening previous and your lovely self injured by an assassin. It is only by the intervention of Heaven I am sure that your life was spared. Clearly, Hakkei Palace is unfit to protect your delicate person, you would be better of placing yourself under my protection. I have the man power to see that you are _well_ taken care of."

Risai barely smothered a silent snarl at the attack on her efficacy as the head of palace security. The only interest he had in his offer was to take the Royal Consort as a hostage and remove the only obstruction between him and the power of the throne via bossing around the Taiho. The governors were upping the ante, going from mere proxy wars to threatening a march on the capitol city and perhaps even Hakkei Palace itself.

"That won't be necessary. As I'm certain you have noticed, I am more than equal to whatever is thrown at me, gentlemen," Yuka replied with icy calm.

Her reply, concise and delivered in a strong, certain tone with such utter poise and confidence threw down the gauntlet. Bring it on.

"I think what you really need is a _real_ man to take you properly in hand," Korosai-shuukou of Ba Province said.

The Royal Tai had never seen anyone with the temerity to _leer_ openly in official chambers. Not even in the most lax of the previous king's reign had there ever been such an egregious lapse in courtly decorum… and to a high-ranked member of the imperial family too!

Gyousou could only think that after all this time of dealing with them, Yuka actually had ice water running through her veins, because she did not even twitch a muscle at an innuendo that made his hand twitch toward his sword on her behalf. Instead, she smiled her polite, serene smile and said

"Then your concern is clearly _not an issue_. What is an issue, however is the matter of your port towns."

Gyousou raised his eyebrows, impressed. Not only had she failed to rise to his bait, her reply had subtly stated that it was "not an issue" because there was no _real_ man there to take her in hand, and she'd glibly moved the conversation on, dismissing him and his comment with mortifying efficiency. Risai was smiling, clearly enjoying the show. The grins on the middle and right ends of the table reflected that they had caught the full implications of her reply and were amused by it.

"Even if your contention that the sale of those touki are authorized by the ministry of winter is true, I have continued to hear distressing reports that the facilities of your port towns are unsafe," Yuka said, in a masterful change of subject. "As I'm certain you gentlemen are all aware, Tai is dependent on trade to augment its limited arable land and shortened growing season. If we do not bring in money, we cannot buy the necessary supplies to support our population. To that end it is in all of our best interests to encourage trading ships so land in our ports, offload their goods, and pick up our own exports in as timely and efficient a manner as possible. An efficient port is a boon of wealth for our kingdom, for the more shipments we can take in and move out, the more money and supplies we will have. To that end, the news of your inferior and somewhat dangerous ports facilities is distressing to imperial interests."

"Our port officials are working to the best of thier abilities-" Yujin Kou replied but was smoothly interrupted by Yuka.

"Which is why I am sure they would all benefit from better port facilities. The imperial technological research and development center has been investigating a way to work around the northern iceflow, especially in winter, and have made some promising developments. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have reviewed the maps and blue prints as well as charts of various shipments and trade routes and come to the conclusion that your port facilities are in need of a radical overhaul."

_:Where is she going with this?:_ Gyousou thought, a little nervously.

By all reports the economy was _just_ stabilized, it wasn't _prosperous_. Building and refitting on the sort of scale she was proposing was an expensive undertaking even for a stable kingdom like En; there was no way Tai would be able to afford it. Beside him, Risai suddenly started, but then on her face appeared a grin that could only be described as anticipatory. Gyousou looked a question at her and she shook her head and signaled that he should continue to watch.

"Your grace is _all_ generosity in her concern for the trade routes of the north," Yujin of Ie said.

Gyousou thought he detected just a hair of suppressed alarm in his voice.

"However I can assure you that the proposed renovations on the northern port towns is entirely unnecessary. How would the imperial budget even support such measures?"

"I'm sure we could arrange something," Yuka said lightly, verbally maneuvering her opponent now that she had him on the defensive.

"We couldn't _possibly_ strain the imperial budget by allowing your engineers corps to invade, I mean _improve_ our port cities. No, we are content to continue to trade as we have been. Though less frequent than your southern ports I'm sure, the gems that the springs in the north produce are more than adequate to cover the costs of waiting between shipments."

"If that is the way you gentlemen feel about it," Yuka said with a shrug. "I suppose I must respect your autonomy in the matter. But you all must at least allow me to help you out with regards to ships. At my behest the imperial technological research division has been looking into something that might help you all get around the limitations of being land-locked by the winter freeze."

There was a sharp intake in breath on the part of the four shuukou of the north. Gyousou himself was surprised. He was intimately aware that with regards to the northern territories, the window of a battle waged on that turf was framed by the space of time between the melt of spring and the first snows of winter. After the snows fell it was nearly impossible to get an army through the mountain passes and the northern ice flow descended to freeze the ports of the very northern sectors solid, making ship travel around the top of Tai impossible as well. Winter was regarded as a time where war and fighting was impossible simply due to the difficulties in deployment over frozen terrain. Only the crazy or the suicidal ever attempted it. Even Gyousou knew better than to try it.

"I have ordered improvements in the Royal Navy based on these new advancements," yuka said with a cheerful smile, one that was all teeth. "And I am pleased to announce that the first branch armada of the new Icefire-line ships have just finished construction and are currently on their commissioning and maiden voyages around Tai."

Yuka signaled to one side and two servants with a large easel holding up a very large drop-cloth map showing the kingdom of Tai with several small paste-ships dotting areas around the north even over areas where patches of blue signified impassable places due to the northern freeze.

"As you can see these ships are quite capable of working around the incapacitating capabilities of the northern iceflow," Yuka continued. "And they are ready to deploy- I mean, to deliver supplies and humanitarian aid wherever my dear northern lords might need it."

_:Ha!:_ he thought with an internal chuckle enjoying just as much as Risai seemed to be, watching the faces of the northern shuukou as the implications of her statement sunk in.

The supposedly impassable defenses that blocked access to the north by the armies under imperial command had just been breached, big time. Using the ships as a staging platform, she could launch air strikes, raids and to a limited extent even engage in land battles via amphibious warfare. With the mobile capabilities of several ships, strike and run tactics would be feasible and in time even the superior land-forces that the northern provinces had assembled would be seriously threatened.

_:If she had sense enough and personnel enough, she could gather armies at strategic points along their southern borders come spring and have them caught in a pincer maneuver,:_ Gyousou thought, appreciating as he always did, an excellently played military strategy.

"I know that the royal navy is mostly used as more of a sort of coast guard, to keep the vicious youma of the sea away from the fishing and trading vessels, but using them as transport for other things only made sense to me, don't you agree?" Yuka said, smiling serenely and locking gazes with each of the opposing lords.

Her look said what her mouth didn't have to. 'Go ahead, send down your land troops as you threatened earlier, and while they are away fighting I'll deploy from the coast and wipe the floor with you.' Risai looked unbearably pleased both with the girl and with herself. Gyousou figured, based on what Risai had said about the girl relying on her expertise with the military, that this had been an operation cooked up between the two of them.

Clearly enraged by the woman who forever thwarted them from attaining power over the kingdom (but was in turn, never _quite_ powerful enough to stop them) the shuukou of Ba, Bun, Ie and Jou provinces rose to their feet as one and leaned forward with their hands flat on the table, their demeanors threatening.

"Even with your supposed naval power, woman" the shuukou of Ba. "The combined military strength of the north far outweighs your own in both weapons and manpower. Furthermore I happen to know for a fact that the imperial army is spread out guarding towns and roads in the south and eradicating youma. Everyone here knows that you will not be able to recall them all in time to hold against us or even launch a counter-strike. And taking the fight into our home territory, where we have all the advantages would be a foolish exercise. Not even the famous general Gyousou Saku, his esteemed helpless majesty, could win a fight against an armed countryside. Face it bitch, you should stick to what you do best; roll on your back and take it like a whore."

The room was frozen in shock. Even Gyousou was too shocked to react. Yuka looked back at the man however, her demeanor was as poised and aloof as if he had made a comment on the weather.

"Is that so?" she replied as though only mildly interested in his comment. "Thank-you for the lecture on military strategy Korosai-shuukou, I shall certainly take it under advisement. However, that has little to do with the mandate delivered by the Ministry of Winter for your ports to be temporarily shut down for inspection and possible renovation pending further investigation. Since it is quite important that the gem-springs in provinces Ba, Bun and Jou continue to output in order to defray consumable expenses, your goods will be exported from the Southern ports of Kaien, Shou, Rin, Jakku, and Maru. I realize that the inconvenience of transporting them overland will place some financial burden on you, however, I have gotten the Ministry of Earth to grant you use of the skyway-system at no additional cost to you."

_:Is she just going to swallow the insult?!:_ Gyousou wondered incredulously.

Even the old king, flighty hedonist that he'd been, would have had the man's head on a pike for saying such a thing to a woman of her rank, and in imperial chambers no less.

"No way in hell are we sending our resources south and into your hands, wench," the shuukou of Bun snapped.

"If sending them south is not amenable to you, good shuukou, then perhaps you would rather use the ships I offered earlier. Either way, it is wasteful not to export your stockpile year round, especially in the lean months at the end of winter. I know you have probably forgotten about such petty concerns, but think of the people you are supposed to be protecting. Your stores of food from the harvest are inadequate and I would not see them starve. It is past time you remembered your duty and acted accordingly."

"I don't need a lecture from a jumped up trollop in imperial robes, it is you who needs to learn your place," Korosai-shuukou snarled at her.

"Ah? And where would that place be?" Yuka inquired with a saccharine smile full of teeth.

"On your knees," he said, his voice echoing into the stillness. "Sucking my cock."

_:Dead man walking,:_ Gyousou thought grimly, reaching for his sword.

Recently recovered or not there was only so much he could listen to and remain silent. Whether Gyousou had consented to the marriage or not, in the eyes of heaven and the laws, the woman whom they had just cast aspirations on was the Royal Consort and they knew it. To disrespect her was the same as disrespecting him directly. Risai, however grabbed his arm and signaled urgently for him to stay his hand and be still yet.

Yuka, for her part, simply regarded the man with an unchanged expression. Maybe Gyousou and Risai were the only ones to see the tension in her shoulders that belied her calm demeanor. Her voice was flat and quiet when she said

"I am going to ignore that with a dignity it does not deserve, Korosai-shukou, but if you speak in this chamber again I will have the source of this contention of yours removed from its place between your legs."

The dead man rose from his chair and walked deliberately in front of the Royal Consort and leered down at her, looking her up and down like a sailor assessing the assets of a dockside floozy, deciding which delight he wanted to sample first.

_:He's weaving on his feet.:_ Gyousou noted. _:Is he __**drunk**__?:_

"We both know how powerless you are. Your navy and all of your ground and air forces put together aren't enough to hold off a seige by even one of us. But there's no reason why we can't play things a little more _friendly_."

The man had the very brass balls to look down the Royal Consort's cleavage.

"The winters get cold up north, I could use a woman with fire and spirit to warm my bed up at night."

"You," Yuka said with cold contempt. "Wouldn't know what to do with her."

The shuukou raised a hand to slap her and Yuka stood her ground and stared him down.

"Do it!" she commanded him. "That's all the pretext I need. Or perhaps you have forgotten what happened to the last fools who laid a hand on me."

Yuka shifted her cool gaze significantly to where the four "temporary" provisional governors sat on the right of the table, their mouths hanging open in aghast shock at the scene before them. Her meaning was clear, if he laid a finger on her, that would be all the grounds she'd need to call him out.

"No matter how debased you are, I am the representative of the crown you supposedly still serve. Remember your place shuukou."

After a long tense moment, the idiot actually, finally backed down. Gyousou then saw the purpose in the exercise. The instant the man backed down, Royal authority was reaffirmed in both their eyes and the eyes of the crown's supporters.

_:Another of her mental manipulations, a power-play_,: Gyousou realized, not certain whether to admire her for it or simply walk out and behead the man. He was leaning heavily toward the latter.

"As for the rest who have arrayed yourselves against me, and by extension the crown," Yuka pointed a finger directly at the man who had just swore at her in imperial chambers and offered harm to her person. "_This_ man is the example of you that everyone will remember. Whether you consider yourselves autonomous liberators or protectors of the true traditions of your people, history will remember _this_ moment."

She turned away from the dead-while-still-standing-shuukou and faced the rest of the northern shuukou arrayed against her. Yuka paced regally in front of them, her manner poised and sincere.

"This senseless proxy war we wage is nothing more than a war of attrition, and those are wars that no-one truly wins. The best we can hope for is that both sides get ground down until they are forced to negotiate. The Taiho and I, and I'm sure his majesty too if he were here, have no desire to see a single drop of blood spilled on the battlefield."

_:I wouldn't mind seeing a few drops spilled here and now, however,:_ Gyousou thought darkly.

"A compelling speech to be sure, your Grace," the shuukou of Bun said. "But it changes nothing. We see no reason to submit ourselves to your weak rule when all here know that there is no action you can take against us."

Gyousou was half a step away from getting up and walking over to sit on the throne and put those shuukou in their place, but Risai again stopped him.

"Wait until the full session tomorrow," she urged. "Taiki will want to be at your side when you again take your place. You owe him that much at least."

The rightful king reluctantly nodded. He could not deny that his kirin deserved to be at his liege's side when he started putting the kingdom to rights, he would not deny him that.

"She's proven what she needs to prove," Risai added a moment later. "I imagine that this meeting will wrap up rather shortly from here."

"If that is your answer," Yuka replied. "I can see that further negotiation will be useless at this point. Go and reflect on your actions. In his majesty's name I give you leave to depart."

The gong was struck and the four shuukou filed out. The five that remained, including Taiki still sat there, exchanging incredulous looks. As Yuka bowed politely at them and turned to leave the way she had entered one of the shuukou, a young-looking woman from Chou province called out to her.

"Your Grace, I am still so shocked about what happened that I can barely breathe! How did you withstand such treatment from him, the things he said! And then he threatened to _hit_ you!"

Yuka smiled a small secret smile, almost looking amused and said

"Everything went according to plan, for the most part, though I had not imagined anything so dramatic. I suppose he can't take it very well."

"Take what, your grace?" the other girl, Aoi Sakuraba from Ki province said.

"Smell his toasting cup," Yuka replied.

Curious, they leaned over and did so, then quickly jerked back, surprised.

"It's so powerful!" Seijida-shuukou of Sui Province said, putting a cloth to his nose.

"Nearly three times as powerful as regular sake," Yuka confirmed with a nod.

"You're saying you got him drunk?!" Taiki said, surprised.

"I'm saying I loosened his tongue," Yuka corrected blandly. "He was already arrogant, and he already harbored those feelings, he just needed a little guidance to bring them out in the open in a way that would be advantageous for me."

"How is having him swear at you or try to hit you and advantage?" Aoi asked.

"He may have done those things," Yuka allowed. "But even partly drunk he recognized the authority of the crown and backed down in the end. That was all the victory I needed. The authority of the emperor is still in tact and he and his cohorts now know it."

"What if he hadn't backed down?" Taiki asked next.

"Then I would have one less problem to deal with."


	10. Calamii cum nomines

**calamii cum nomenes (arrows with names)**

Yuka had held onto her temper through the meeting only by dint of long practice. Even if she had manipulated the situation into the outcome she wanted, it did not mean that the comments directed at her had not pissed her off.

_:Some things truly are universal,:_ Yuka growled to herself as she tried hard not to storm back to her quarters.

As the Royal Consort, Yuka had to look at all times like the elegant and poised lady, even when she was pissed to the highest level of pissivity.

"There are bullies, no matter where you go."

Even when it had happened, Yuka Sugimoto had never been quite certain what had tipped the other kids at school into making her the outcast. She'd liked books and she wasn't much for small talk, but she still didn't see how that had given people cause to make her a social pariah. Yuka had found quickly that the situation only escalated if she opened her mouth to put the girls doing the bullying in their place, so she'd reluctantly learned to keep quiet. Even if it was on a larger scale, bullying was still bullying, and played by essentially the same rules. Bullies were not cowards, bullies were people who had power, liked abusing their power because it made them feel even _more_ powerful, and wanted to go on doing it for as long as they could possibly get away with it.

_:Dealing with essential helplessness day in and day out sure isn't doing anything to lower my stress levels!: _

Meiden Palace was the place where Yuka had been assigned (or maybe it was simply that she and Taiki and Risai between the three of them had annexed it) to live in for her duration as Royal Consort. Instead of being on the eastern side of the inner palace where the old king had kept his harem of concubines, Risai had ordered space cleared on the other side of Seiden Palace, which was where the emperor's rooms were and the place that Taiki lived in. Yuka and Taiki were like roommates or close neighbors. Taiki's suite of rooms was connected with the rooms that Yuka had taken over, which might have been his but he generously moved over and made space for her.

_:Though the first thing I did was have my own bathing chamber put in_,: Yuka thought with a little humor.

Taiki and the emperor shared the imperial garden, which separated Taiki's chambers from the rooms where the king was kept. Taiki could just run across the garden and slip in through the back door into his master's chamber to visit with him. Yuka got the "front rooms" which were the ones facing out and adjoining a small side courtyard, and that was more than fine with her.

_:Even though he was asleep, I was not exactly comfortable with the idea of sharing such an open place with a strange man.:_

Seiden Palace and its mirror Meiden Palace had undergone some changes by Risai and her guards to make them more easily defensible. They were still very lovely. Without at least one safe place to retreat to from prying eyes and incessant demands, Yuka may well have gone crazy.

"Ladies!" Yuka snapped out as she reached the sanctuary of her rooms and quickly stripped out of the elaborate multiple layers of the beautiful robes she had worn to court and passed them off into the hands of her room maids while she changed into a quipao and the shortened pants she wore for training. In the small garden she had taken over for herself a bevy of her "attendant ladies maids" that were in actuality, her bodyguards that followed her everywhere, assembled.

"I've had a difficult evening," she said as she exited into the garden cum training yard. "And I need to relieve some stress."

Each according to their natures, the bodyguard-maids looked either resigned or anticipatory. When Yuka was stressed, she worked out her distemper by a good, long fight. It both relieved her stress and kept her skills sharp.

"We had heard about the unendurable insults you have had to tolerate heaped upon your name, Your Grace," the head battle-maid and the closest thing to a girlfriend Yuka had in the palace report with her customary solemnity. She was a serious woman and took her duties to protect her lady seriously.

"Wow, news travels fast," Yuka muttered, not surprised. The servants heard everything in that place.

"We have prepared the touki," another girl said, smiling and bringing forth the weapon.

"Thank-you, and I apologize in advance," Yuka said as she took up her customary fan bowed to signify that she was ready to begin.

Inspired by the kill-strike she had once made on Youko that did _not_ kill her because Yuka had been wielding Suiguutou at the time (which could not be used against its master), Yuka had gotten the Ministry of Winter to create a very special sort of touki for her, for training purposes. There was a spell on the weapon that would make it so that it would not actually hurt anyone. If a strike was made that would, in real life have cut off an arm, the weapon passed harmlessly through the appendage leaving behind only a glowing line. The severed portion would glow either blue or red depending on the color of the weapon and that color would seep up signifying loss of blood. Furthermore, with wounds that had bloodloss, the victims sight would color slightly from one side to the other, and when the color covered their vision completely that signified that they had bled out. The training touki were intensely useful. Yuka could learn how to both make and counter kill-strikes using weapons that felt like the real thing but were not. Though being on the receiving end of a kill strike _stung_.

Yuka darted in, taking on her ladies in her customary aggressive manner, working off the stress of her earlier humiliation with a good long fight. At her request, her battle-maids were former assassins and spies rather than the usual rank-and-file military guards. Yuka had once been trained as an assassin by the king of Kou, though up until she joined the battle to liberate Tai she'd never actually killed anyone. She figured that the best way to stop an assassination was to surround herself by those who knew the business. As an added plus, over the years the ladies had rounded out her training. Now, they all sparred with each other for fun, or in Yuka's case, stress relief.

The way these ladies (and Yuka by extension) fought often looked more like a beautiful acrobatic dance than actual combat, but it was a deadly business to them, and they kept their skills razor sharp. Yuka managed to take out five of them before she was killed by a hind strike. Among the ranks of sages, it seemed that there were immortals and _immortals_, rarely were there ones like the kings, who were invulnerable to nearly anything. Yuka was actually fairly delicate for an immortal; she was only immune to many poisons, not all of them, and her ability to regenerate from serious wounds was not as strong as many. That was why Risai and her ladies trained her so hard in how to defend herself. If she were not highly trained then a good assassin would still be able to kill her almost as easily as if she'd been mortal. After that round they separated and deconstructed the move, then the head guard went over counter-tactics to that move and ways to watch out for it. By that time Yuka had cooled down, and was feeling more mellow. And it would have been rude for her to ignore her uninvited guest while she was on break.

Leaned against a doorjamb, apparently admiring the show, was the king who had just woken up. Yuka had to restrain a surprised reaction nearly every time she saw him move or make a facial expression. It was just so _weird_ seeing him move around after all this time of him lying perfectly still.

_:I've never seen him standing up before, he looks very different,:_ she realized with a small shock.

He was taller than she had thought he would be. And broader in the shoulder. It seemed a bit off that a man who had been in stasis sleep for decades should emerge from it looking so physically well. Even in ordinary clothes with no armor, she would have been wary of engaging him as an opponent due to his size and physical superiority.

The king stepped down into her courtyard and Yuka's battle maids bowed and exited quietly, apparently intent on giving them some time alone. Yuka glared at their retreating backs from the corner of her eye.

_:Traitors,:_ she thought.

To their credit, they all thought that the two of them were an adoring husband and wife separated for many long decades, rather than the awkward situation that was the reality.

"Good evening your majesty," Yuka said with a polite bow as she wiped the sweat off her face with a towel. "I apologize for my appearance, you have caught me in dishabille."

"No apology is necessary," he replied. "I am the one who has intruded on you."

_:He has... a very nice voice,:_ Yuka thought.

It was deep without being basso, with a very pleasant rough quality to it that appealed to her the same way she liked many of the signing voices of certain rock groups (at least back when she'd lived in Japan). It was a very masculine voice.

Yuka waited, looking steadily back at him, to see if there was any particular reason that he had intruded on her fight and all but dismissed her sparring partners with his presence. After a long moment, he looked a bit discomfited.

_:He probably has no idea what to say to me, any more than I know what to say to him,:_ Yuka realized.

As she had imagined it would be, the situation was awkward. There was not _one_ white elephant, but rather and entire _herd_ of them, tap dancing in the dining room. Yuka had never been one for small talk, and apparently neither was he. So they just sort of looked at each other for a long moment. Then his eye fell on the weapons neatly placed on the rack nearby. Interested, or maybe just looking for something to say to break the ice with, he picked one up.

"A touki," he said with mild surprise. "But I have never sensed a spell like this before. What does it do?"

Yuka explained her need for a true weapon that would let her practice with a real blade without having to fear hurting anyone, and then went on to explain the intricate detailed workings of the spell and its applications. She even gave him a short demonstration of how it worked. Gyousou made admiring noises that sounded genuinely appreciative and eyed one of them speculatively.

"I wouldn't recommend it right away," Yuka cautioned him, reading the look. He wanted to try one out. Yuka knew that Taiki would be concerned if he did, after having just gotten his king back, Taiki would fret about every little thing possibly hurting him until he was assured that Gyousou was well. He would probably be a while in the reassurance stage.

"You just woke up last night, and started moving around today," she added. "You need to be more cautious than that because if you rush yourself too fast you'll get hurt."

"You sound like Taiki," he said with a sigh, giving in and placing the sword back on the rack.

"He cares about you," was Yuka's reply.

"And you care about him," Gyousou said with a nod, as though confirming something.

Yuka looked back at him, _that_ went without saying. She wouldn't be here were it otherwise.

"I must tha-"

"Don't thank me," she cut him off. "I'm here for a friend. I'm here for Taiki and that's all that matters, so I don't need any thanks from you. Just rule well from this point forward."

Gyousou stared at her, nonplussed for a minute.

"You would deny me even an expression of gratitude, you are a harsh person."

"Yes," Yuka acknowledged. "If you must be grateful, express it by paying attention to your kingly duties. And take care that Taiki will never... _fall ill_. That will be the thanks I need."

"I feel rebuked," he replied.

Yuka sighed a little bit, that had not really been her intent. She was a fine politician, but sometimes she was just _fail_ at interpersonal relationships, namely her own.

"That was not my intent," she replied, then smiled a little ruefully at herself and shook her head "Well, maybe not entirely anyway. I don't know you. I only have what Taiki and those people who knew you have to say about you to go on. I'm uncomfortable not having been able to form my own opinion of you."

"I do not believe we've even been formally introduced, though I heard that we have been married."

His smile was surprisingly charming, and showed some of the kindness that Taiki had told her about.

"I am Gyousou Saku, previously General of the Right of the Forbidden Army now anointed King of Tai."

"Yuka Sugimoto," she replied in the same spirit. "Previously an honor student at Jindai High School, currently acting as an advisor to the Taiho and Royal Consort to the King of Tai for the interim."

"You have not had time to form an opinion of me, and I have the feeling you're more of a wait and watch sort of person anyway, but if you would like you may ask me any question you wish o know and I'll try to answer it."

Yuka regarded him for a long moment, then shrugged, turning back to the moon shining on the small koi pond in her courtyard.

"General Risai has told me about how you had set up the court to run during an interregnum to help defray the mismanagement of the old king," she said at last, without preamble. "And also how you conducted a winter hunt for corrupt officials while Taiki was away acting as a diplomat to Ren."

The sharp look in her eyes told him that Yuka had her own guesses as to the _convenient_ timing of the diplomatic mission.

"You seem like a capable enough leader, how is it that Asen got the drop on you?"

Gyousou smiled a little ruefully.

"As adept a politician as you have proven yourself, you certainly can be direct when it suits you," he commented.

Yuka waited.

"Part of the matter was... impatience," Gyousou said with what for him must have been painful honesty. "Since I had taken the throne, matters in the Royal Court had been quickly put into order as I had wished them to, however the countryside was still in a state of civil war due to the excesses of the late king. I am certain that you of all people are aware of the _usual_ problems here in Tai."

"Intimately," Yuka replied with a nod that said go on.

"I am, or was, a general of some note. The problem in Bun Province seemed _made_ for me to handle, plus I have a good connection with the people there. I felt that this would be a good opportunity to show myself and reassure my people that I would be the king they were hoping for. You see, they had put up with a great deal from the previous king, who was well known for his excesses. I knew I could calm the fears of the people, and if they knew they no longer need fear a crown who abused their faith then matters would settle down that much more quickly."

Yuka's usual cool mask warmed a bit in approval.

"However, Asen knew of my wish to stabilize the civilians and created the revolt simply as a way to draw me out. Mingled in with the normal rabble were highly trained mercenary agents assigned to neutralize my guard and to take me down. I recall thinking at the time that the fighters were unusually efficient for civilians with no training and then everything went black. I woke up in a cave somewhere, chained hand and foot and then Asen entered, revealing himself and his intentions. Before he set the Choukoku on me, he detailed exactly how he was going to ruin the kingdom I had worked to stabilize. By keeping me alive but incapacitated, he would see that the land I love would forever know only darkness."

Yuka felt a surprisingly deep pang for him. Though Gyousou's voice was very carefully even, there was a roughness to his tone that spoke of careful control. She also noticed that when he was distressed he had a very faint accent that she could not quite place.

"I fought against Asen," she replied. "Not directly, but when I led the armies of Kei and En to reconquer Tai in your and Taiki's name. I'm probably not as familiar with him as _you_ are seeing as I have only met him face to face on the day that I exiled him."

Gyousou looked at her incredulously.

"He's still _alive_?!" the king snapped in dismay.

"Taiki did not wish to have him executed," Yuka replied, though her tone gave away the fact that Yuka didn't really share his quality of mercy. "And since I'm only the Royal Consort and not the actual ruler, I was unable to revoke his status as an immortal. He is currently being kept on the Isle of Nen, in the Sea of Emptiness south of Tai. But anyway, as I was saying, Asen is a military man much like yourself, but he's also cunning as a snake."

"And yet, you kept him _alive_," Gyousou felt obliged to point out.

"And imprisoned," Yuka replied, slightly defensively. "On the day I exiled him, he said something to me that I've never been quite certain what to make of. He said that he acted out of the interests of his kingdom. That a ravaged land was better than what you would have made it had you sat upon the throne. Considering everything I've gone through to keep this land from getting any more ravaged, you'll have to forgive me if I request an explanation. After all, Taiki is still in your care, I need to be certain of you, and that he will be safe there."

"You don't trust me."

"I don't know you. You have many supporters, but I cannot afford to ignore your detractors as well."

Gyousou sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly, clearly discomfited but at last cleared his throat a little and said

"I do not know if he told you this or not, but Asen and I essentially grew up together. We were cadets of the same year at the military academy, and close as brothers. As I'm sure you can imagine there was the usual boyhood competition between us, some of them he won and some of them I won."

"Oh dear, I think I see where this is going. There's a girl involved in this somewhere, isn't there?"

"Indeed," Gyousou replied with a grave nod. "She was a nobleman's daughter, a noblewoman of high rank. Neither I nor Asen were of a background high enough to approach her, but if we climbed ranks in the military... Well, that's how it began. We reached the rank of Captain in our respective units at the same time and courted her at the same time."

"Sounds like a fiasco," Yuka commented.

"Neither of the two of us doubted our capability to win her," Gyousou said.

"I hope she threw you both over," Yuka said dryly.

"She did not," Gyousou replied with dignity. "But neither did she favor us. Her father however, interceded. He did not wish for his daughter to enter a military House on the basis that such careers easily rose and fell. If Asen or I could prove that we could attain a truly high and stable position then he would hear our cases for courtship. And so we worked to become generals. I outshone General Asen however, and was awarded the county seat of Saku."

"So you got the girl and he was jealous?!" Yuka said incredulously. "That's what all of this nonsense is about?"

"Not entirely," Gyousou cleared his throat and looked extremely embarrassed. "Before I had managed to attain my rank as the count of Saku, her father had already promised her hand to another, a man she did not love. Patience has never been a virtue of mine, it is sad to say. When she asked me to help her out of the situation, I saw a favorable opportunity. I stole her away from her house and we were married in secret."

Yuka looked at him in surprise.

"Really? You completely don't seem the sort. I mean, you seem so virtuous and upright. Hey, do I need to worry about any ex-wives popping up out of the woodwork?"

"If that were so, they would have shown up by now," he replied. "As you can imagine, Asen was enraged by our duplicity, he felt that _he_ should have been the one she turned to, but she loved _me_. Her father disowned her, but by this point I had secured a high enough position that I could support her comfortably."

"Didn't she work?" Yuka asked curiously.

In her own world it was becoming more common, though it was by far not universal, that a woman would have a career and produce income to augment the husband's salary. In the world of the twelve kingdoms, due to the fact that the women here did not give birth and thus were not automatically locked into the role of stay at home wife and mother by the "biology" argument, it was far more common that both genders had careers of their own. Yuka's question was a valid one, all things considered.

"She was a delicate woman," Gyousou said, a little defensively.

"Not judging," Yuka said raising her arms placating. "So you married a delicate flower and then what?"

"At this point I had become not just a general in the Palace Guard of the Right, but the count of Saku County and had begun my work to shore up the imperial court, which had begun to fray around the edges. My work kept me away from home, visiting the imperial court, as well as quelling civil revolts in various places around the country. During this time Isana became ill. I was busy in Bun province at the time and could not get away to see her. I wrote often, but the conflict there was a delicate matter and I could not get away to see her."

"Was that that "Tetsui sheild" business I've heard about?" Yuka asked.

"The very same," he nodded. "So as you can imagine it required careful monitoring. During the months I was away, my wife, though she was seen by the best healers, and given every treatment, became sicker and sicker. I could do little more than write to her. She died while I was away, still dealing with the civil conflict."

"Oh..." Yuka said, suddenly aware of how now the situation they were in currently was even _more_ awkward. Not only had she all but demanded an explanation from him that had brought up something that was undoubtedly quite painful, but she found that he had already been married, and that the one he loved had died. A simple 'I'm sorry' seemed completely inadequate. Still…

"I'm sorry," Yuka said. Then her mind turned sharp and the obvious conclusion came unbidden from her mouth, much her mortification.

"So_ that's_ what he meant. He must have seen everything that happened, and believed you were the sort of person that wants something and impatiently goes to grab it, but then when he has it, loses interest and neglects it."

She winced.

"So he must have feared you'd neglect the kingdom or something." She paused for a beat, thinking about it. "But that doesn't actually make sense to me. He had to have seen for himself how you worked to straighten matters out. And if he was so concerned with Tai's future, why go to all the trouble to lay waste to everything?"

"Revenge," Gyyousou said simply. "He wanted to punish me for destroying the woman he loved. In his eyes, I chose Tai over Isana, so he felt that the kingdom deserved to be destroyed because it was because of Tai that she had died, at least in his eyes."

"Crazy," was Yuka's flat opinion.

"You've never been in love have you?" Gyousou replied, looking over at her. "Forgive me for saying so, but you look quite young."

"If I had never stepped in to help Taiki manage things, I would be over sixty years old right now," Yuka ppointed out, a bit defensively. "I'd be an old granny, happily married with ten kids and a hundred grandkids. Instead I chose _this_."

She made a vague gesture to encompass everything around her, meaning the palace and a life as the Royal Consort of a divided court and kingdom wothou an active king.

"It is a rare person who would risk so much to help out a friend," Gyousou commented.

"You shouldn't think that I'm the epitome of a virtuous person," Yuka cautioned him.

Even if it had been many years ago, there had been a time when Yuka had been so ruthless and ambitious that she had thrown away friendship and loyalty in order to seize a destiny she felt was hers by right of strength. She had been utterly ruthless in her drive to hunt down and kill a person who had never once done her any harm, all because she wanted something. That core of ruthlessness was part of her still, and she relied on Taiki's advice to keep her morals in check.

"From where I stand you seem almost dauntingly virtuous," Gyousou replied. "You've stepped in to hold together an untenable situation, and against all odds succeeded in a most surprising manner. All for the sake of helping a friend, how is this not virtuous?"

"I haven't always been like this," Yuka replied. "And even if it seems peaceful, it requires a different kind of ruthlessness to move people around to your will."

"Yes I suppose it does," he agreed. "On an entirely different note. Do you wish for me to kill that shuukou who insulted you today?"

Yuka smiled and said

"I have a better idea..."

She walked into her chamber, fished through her wardrobe for a minute and removed a long, thin wooden box then placed it before Gyousou and gestured he should open it. With a curious look at her, the king did so. The inside of the felt-lined box held four perfect arrows. He looked a question at her, mystified as to their significance. Yuka pointed to the shaft of each where a single set of kanji had been carved into the sides and inlaid with silver. Four names; the names of the Shuukou of Ie, Ba, Bun and Jou provinces respectively.

"May I have your permission to send these gifts, your majesty," Yuka said with a smile that was all teeth.

Gyousou blinked for a moment then threw his head back and laughed a deep, rich laugh. If nothing else, it seemed the ice had been broken.


	11. Absus non Tollit Usum

**Abusus Non Tollit Usum (misuse does not remove use)**

Taiki slept soundly on a long, soft couch at the foot of Gyousou's bed, apparently it was a place where he had often slept while Gyousou had been unconscious. He and Risai were currently in his office, reviewing possible military maneuvers that could be made if the northern province's refused to settle down quietly. Examining the map carefully and reviewing the information that Risai and the spies under the Royal Consort's command, Gyousou found his soldiers instincts warning him about something.

"Something's not right," he said with disquiet as he continued to study the map of forts and recent northern troop deployment.

"Forgive me, your majesty," Risai replied. "But there is a great deal in Tai that is not right."

"I meant about the troop positioning. Look at them all, these are not the deployments of the provincial armies of several provinces working separately. There is one unifying strategy here."

"The four northern shuukou _are_ all working together against the consort," Risai pointed out.

"Even acting cooperatively, they would not have agreed on such a unified strategy. These northern provincial armies are acting like the arms of _one_ singular army. There is a defense skeleton in place that makes equal use of all points of terrain, but with the shuukou being as greedy and self-interested as they are, there _should_ be some of those troops being held back to protect individual interests. But there are none. And see here..."

Gyousou pointed to a place on the map, and abandoned trade post right beside a major east-west artery.

"This place should be crawling with suspicious soldiers of both of those provinces under the guise of "keeping the peace" but in actuality making sure that their own province's interests are secured, and yet it is all but abandoned by the military in order to man the border posts along the south. If the idea is to defend against southern incursion then that is the correct move to make, but I can't believe that the self-interested shuukou would not look after the trade routes that bring them the luxuries they crave. Most especially when Lady Yuka has put such an effective economic stranglehold on them."

Risai examined the map and saw what he was talking about.

"That is... interesting. It _does_ look like there's a unified strategy. I had not seen it before now."

Gyousou frowned at the map, a thought clearly occurring to him.

"Those lords were put into place by Asen, who, I have just found out, is still alive. Had it not occurred to anyone that he could be running an army from his cell using the four northern shuukou as puppets?"

"No form of word, no messages or letters, get out of the Isle of Nen," Risai said. "The lady Yuka has forbidden him to even have paper."

"Unless he has an agent on the inside," Gyousou countered.

"I do not think that is possible. The contingent set to guard him was carefully chosen just for that reason."

"I know the way he strategizes inside and out," Gyousou said flatly. "This is his work."

Risai continued to study the map, then slowly, reluctantly nodded.

"I do not know how such a thing is possible, but I must defer to your knowledge in such a case."

_:This is why kirin do not rule kingdoms,:_ Gyousou thought grimly to himself.

He loved Taiki, and there was never a more gentle or compassionate kirin in all of the twelve kingdoms, but at the same time, Tai was not a kingdom that could be ruled by being gentle. The girl was well-meaning to acquiesce to the Taiho in many matters (and he could sense that she often did so against what she felt might have been a better decision if some of the acerbic comments in her notes were anything to go by) but sometimes being too gentle, especially when dealing with a clear threat, was worse than being too hard.

Risai turned to a nearby servant, a trustworthy one who had been in the palace during the reigns of the last five emperors.

"I know it is just past dawn, but go to the Royal Consort's chambers and see if she will attend here," the lady general said.

Gyousou looked a dubious question over at her and said

"I had thought that Lady Yuka relied on you for all military matters."

"For the most part yes," Risai said. "But her ability to discern intents from very few clues often leaves me surprised. I think she would be of help in this matter."

A few minutes later Yuka appeared in the doorway, clearly having been roused from her bed for she wore nothing more than a hou to cover herself and her long, dark hair was still rumpled from sleep instead of neatly brushed.

"General? What is-?" Yuka cut herself off after she caught sight of Gyousou awake and fully dressed. Her cheeks pinkened in embarrassment.

"Ah, forgive me, I was not expecting you," she said turning and ducking back through the doorway in embarrassment.

"Forget so soon that I was awake, did you?" he questioned dryly with some amusement.

There was the whisper of soft footsteps and a few minutes later the girl re-emerged more fully clothed and with her hair brushed and put up in a simple braid.

"It may take some time to adjust, your majesty," she replied.

"Risai and I were just reviewing the northern troop movements and I've come to an apparently startling conclusion. The armies of the north are being secretly commanded by Asen from his prison on the Isle of Nen."

"Hmm..." Yuka said, giving his statement careful consideration as she poured herself a cup of tea offered by a nearby servant and put honey in it. "Not_ im_possible I suppose. After all, Napoleon managed a come-back once. But Asen receives no visitors, and the guard posted there is switched out regularly and with people loyal to crown authority. Still, with traitors infesting the woodwork of Tai like termites I suppose it's entirely possible."

The calm, matter-of-fact way she simply accepted his statement was in itself a bit disconcerting.

"That's all?" Gyousou questioned, a little irritated. "You hear my greatest enemy possibly has martial control over half of the kingdom and you're not concerned by that?"

"I _said_ he was cunning as a snake, didn't I? And nearly all of the problems I have had have been with people he has put into place that I cannot get rid of without violating the Laws of Heaven," Yuka replied. "So yes. I'd suggest you refrain from allowing him to draw you out this time."

"It is a sad fact, your majesty," Risai interjected as Gyousou sent a scowling glare in Yuka's direction for her levity. "But we have had to grow accustomed to both a government and a military that works against us. We must begin every plan with the assumption that it will be compromised."

"I find it is usually best to layer my strategies if I must move at all," Yuka recommended. "Or to do several things at once that seem to have nothing to do with one another, and have at lest two of those things be decoys leading eyes away from my real goals. It's a pain in the neck but one fights with the weapons one has on hand."

"The armies of the north must be dealt with regardless," Gyousou said.

Yuka must have been adept at reading even a stranger's face for the next words out of her mouth surprised him.

"You think that he has been using my economic proxy wars to keep me distracted while he plans something else."

"What does the map tell you?" Gyousou said by way of answer.

"Nothing," Yuka replied. "I don't understand army-type stuff. If you ask me to discern the lucrative capabilities of a certain trade route, or to expand an already well known good into a new market, there I can help you. If you ask me about moving an army from one place to another I'm afraid it's not going to happen."

"Think of an army like a trade route then," he said patiently.

"Armies are not profitable," Yuka said flatly. "All they do is consume resources. I would have cut them off for running too many years in the red."

Gyousou was surprised into a snort of laughter and regarded her for another long moment. Finally he said

"Very well, I shall explain it to you. Asen possesses superior numbers and a defensible stronghold in the north but is limited by how and at what times he can deploy his forces. Your armies here to the south of what you seem to have come to call the northern line are more mobile due to the mechanical infrastructure you have put into place to get around the dangers of winter travel. Ingenious by the way, very well thought-out and executed."

"And it pays for itself too," Yuka preened a bit at that.

"He knows as well as you do that fielding an army is an expensive undertaking. However, much of the kingdoms former wealth came from the multitude of gem and gold springs that dot the northern terrain."

"Which is why I've been limiting the amount he can trade, even on the black market," Yuka protested. "I had hoped to limit the size of the armies that way."

"And I believe you were partly successful," Gyousou replied. "The positions of his troops are good, but they are not optimal. Simply put, I believe he is making the best of a situation that is not as stable as he would like it to be. There are numerous holes, especially if he plans to attack any time soon."

"Well why _now_ then, if you're right and he does plan to attack soon?" Yuka asked. "The northern shuukou and I have been in a cold war-"

At Gyousou's questioning look Yuka explained that a cold war was essentially a fight were both sides were so powerful that actually engaging in combat would be undesirable, so a great deal of sabre rattling and espionage went on. She and the northern shuukou had been like two war-dogs on either side of a yard growling at each other, but not quite daring to attack.

"For decades," she continued after her brief explanation. "Why would he attack now? Especially if he does not realize you are awake and able to take the throne. Besides, even if that were not true, attacking would be foolish. He knows I can still command the imperial army, attacking me would destroy him."

"I do not believe that this is truly about a desire to seize power," Gyousou replied gravely. "He still wishes revenge. In the end, he wants to watch it all burn."

"How would he convince his troops to fight their own people in the first place..."

Yuka looked at the map again and her face drained of color as a realization hit her.

"The economic war," she said. "The south is far more wealthy now than the north and that's how he's getting them to attack their own people. He's been creating resentment not just against the crown but against their fellow countrymen based on the divide in wealth and prosperity. The armies that Asen and his followers lead no doubt think they will sweep down, loot the prosperous cities and ports then retreat to their northern stronghold like vikings!"

"Like what?" he asked, then shook his head. "Either way, for a woman who claims not to understand military strategy, you certainly grasp _that_ well enough."

"Sheesh, this is why I dislike military affairs," Yuka grumbled to herself, sipping her now-tepid tea. "It's so inelegant and unprofitable!"

Risai and Gyousou exchanged an amused glance. It seemed the interim ruler disliked getting her hands dirty.

"If what you say really is so, what are you planning to do about it?" Yuka asked next.

"Get rid of the source of the threat, first of all," Gyousou muttered darkly.

He straightened decisively and said

"General Risai, I want you to pull all available troops from their stationed posts in the towns and ports and patrolling along the major roads, you may keep a skeleton guard in place but the majority of the troops I want have assembled in Zui Province along the south west border. I'll tell you how I want the troops divided later when I have a little more information to go on and can perfect my strategies."

"Sir!" she said, snapping to attention.

"Have Special Response Teams assembled for skirmishing activities on the east coast and to prevent the enemy from either taking in or exporting supplies."

"I'll call out the new ships in our navy, it's time to field test them anyway," Risai said.

"I will deal with the Provinicial Governors of the northern Provinces later this evening, losing their leadership should throw enough chaos into the works for us to begin our campaign effectively. With any luck, the _true_ mastermind will be caught off-guard and we will have forced him to move up his plans, thus disrupting them. As for announcing that I've returned, attempting to hide the fact here in the royal palace is most likely useless, so directly handling matters as quickly as possible would be the better strategy in this situation. If we catch them off guard they will not have time to make for their boltholes and ready their defenses. Also, I believe it will draw out the enemy."

"You're the military genius," Yuka said getting up to leave. "I leave it to you. I'm going back to my rooms and taking a good long nap."

Gyousou looked at her, taken aback.

"Are you not coming to court?" he questioned curiously. Yuka looked back at him.

"No way! You just said you're taking over. As far as I'm concerned that means I'm relieved of duty. I haven't had a single break in decades, so I'm going to take full advantage of this and play hooky. I think I'll lounge around in bed all day and read manga, Enki just dropped off a new series that I've been dying to get the chance to read. Maybe I'll have the kitchens send up a tray of sweets, I love those little mousse and berry cakes they make with the honey glaze."

"I am preparing to retake my kingdom, something which you have not gotten to do in all the time you have been supporting crown authority here in Tai, and the first thing you think to do is laze around eating cake?"

"Can you blame me? I'm exhausted!" Yuka snapped.

She pivoted on a heel and pointed her finger right in his face, setting a hand on a hip to give him a good scold.

"Its been years dealing with the same grinding problems that just get worse and worse no matter what I do, and there's never any way to truly fix it. Do you have any idea how discouraging it is to know that even if things are stable, no matter how hard I work I'll never bring true prosperity? Things will be good but they'll never be great, and no matter what people will always wish deep in their hearts that it wasn't me standing there. So yes, I'm _going_ to go laze around and eat cake, and if you or anyone else has anything to say about it, they'd better prepare themselves first!"

Gyousou looked at her, amused, slightly pitying and also slightly guilty. However, he could not resist teasing her a little bit because she had such an attitude.

"Perhaps I should prepare a mild sedative for you instead," he said dryly. "You look like you could use one."

Yuka gave him a look that was _all_ attitude, like a cat, and sniffed, before she could make a reply however, they were interrupted by the voice of one of the palace maids calling urgently and sounding slightly panicked.

"Your Grace! Royal Consort! The diplomatic envoy's from Kei, En, Han, Hou and Ryuu have arrived with their New Years greetings and we are not set up to receive them!"

Risai, knowing she might be dragooned into it if she didn't act quickly, hurriedly gathered up her scrolls and maps with her orders sketched a quick bow and beat a hasty retreat. Yuk looked next over at the rightful king, who would ordinarily be expected to receive the envoys, but he pointed back to his strategy maps, signaling that he intended to be busy for the next long while. Yuka looked dismayed and then resigned. She sighed a long sigh, slumping forward a bit as if in defeat.

"Place Ryuu in the tapestry room," she said resignedly. "And En in the glass room, Kei can go to the aviary and Han can be placed in the clockwork suite and Hou can have the mirror room. Of course have refreshments prepared for them. Tell my room maids to ready the amber ensemble and I will be there shortly."

Yuka turned and looked over at Gyousou.

"You're busy with your strategy, so I'll handle this for now," then she grumbled. "I should have _known_ it was too good to be true. Keh!"

With that she bowed politely and took herself off to deal with the diplomatic envoys.

"When did we have diplomatic ties with Ryuu and Hou?" Gyousou questioned curiously when he caught up to Risai.

"The Royal Consort has expanded and diversified our trade markets. We export water-silk to Hou, whose winters are nearly as bad as ours, as well as a slight fur trade and some lumber. Ryuu consumes that strange confection that her grace has developed at an alarming rate, seems it's quite the craze there. They also buy books and sap-glass from us."

"Books?" Gyousou said, surprised.

Books were ruinously expensive because each one had to be copied by hand, _exactly_. A good scribe might take a year to copy in perfect penmanship, a single manuscript.

"Her Grace has sponsored a great library in the trade-city of Sen, and uses some kind of device to make many copies of a book very quickly. It is a state secret how it is done. Other nations loan her their books with the agreement that she will produce copies for them and then we sell the extras for a large sum. She has some kind of literacy campaign, among other things. Sen has become quite the culture center."

"That's... unexpected. Where is Sen?"

"Do you remember the River Yi?"

"Next thing to a swamp, runs east-west between the Kairi range and the Sora Range," he replied. "Not really useful for anything but breeding Youma, what about it?"

"It's a major canal-way now," Risai said. "About thirty years ago when the skyways were finished, she moved the engineers on to draining off the still water, creating more farmland while simultaneously making better flood failsafes. The engineers bottomed out a channel between the ranges to create an artificial riverbed. That became the Sen Canal which flows along the border separating Chou and Ki provinces and out through the harbor at Ran. The idea was to connect the north-south arteries of the skyways in Zui, Ki, Chou and Sui and the far east side of Tai with international trade harbors along the western and southern seaboards. A lot of new towns and trade cities have sprung up along its banks in recent decades."

"Oh..." Gyousou said. Part of him was a little irked at the reconstruction. He understood that it was all probably a good and necessary change, but he hadn't authorized any of it and it was sort of irritating to have someone step in and just start changing things.

Gyousou and Risai spent a good deal of the rest of the morning hammering out thier strategies for the upcoming combat. It was agreed that it was past time to put a decisive end to things, and the more quickly they moved, the greater chance they had of catching and keeping the enemy off guard.

The assemblage of the troops, they decided, would be disguised as concession to the Minister of Spring and his request for an enormous new years parade. Gyousou would have the shuukou of Ba, Bun, Jou and Ie provinces and their entourages arrested and their immortality revoked as soon as he was ready to move. Risai already had her people in place for it. The actual arrest of the governors would take place publicly, in court, as soon as he sat down. There were already recommendations for replacements from both Risai and Yuka. Taiki joined them halfway through, although he didn't say much; just being near his master seemed to content him just fine.

_:The Taiki I remember was always so painfully self-effacing, as though just him breathing the air was sure to burden someone,:_ Gyousou thought, watching his kirin out of the corner of one eye_. :I wonder how he has handled having to nearly rule outright for the last several decades.:_

Having a co-rulership (and with a foreign kaikyaku no less) with a kirin essentially on the throne just sounded _weird_ to him. He had dealt with an interregnum for a decade, waiting for the Tai kirin to be found and the flag for Shouzan to be raised, so he knew how difficult it could be to deal with various difficulties. However this political and military mire that the kingdom was in was about ten times worse than anything he had ever had to deal with. In his day, the court was only _partly_ filled with corrupt officials. The Provincial governors at least did their jobs (except for Bun Province). The Ministries kept order in their bailiwicks and did not waste time on... Gyousou glanced down at the current political snarl he was trying to understand so that he could unravel...

"Why in the world would the Ministry of Fall demand that the ministry of earth hand over the taking of the census for taxation purposes?"Gyousou wondered aloud. "Taxes have nothing to do with the judiciary! And the Ministry of Heaven has nothing to do with the Ministry of Earth's ability to keep records, why in the world are they even trying to interfere?"

On the surface the strange tangle made absolutely no sense. The six ministries were ordained by heaven with certain and specific duties and only those duties, unless assigned otherwise by the king, and even the king had better clear it with Tentei first. Why they should suddenly take it into their heads to ignore this was, he felt an unnecessary mystery. He turned to his kirin and asked him about the matter.

Taiki looked at him with wide, liquid-grey eyes and said

"I don't think it's really anyone's fault..." he said hesitantly, clearly uncomfortable about naming names and placing blame.

"The report in my hand would suggest otherwise," Gyousou pressed gently.

"Yuka and the Daishikou, Soushikou and Choushi don't really get along, I mean, not as well as she gets along with the heads of Heaven and Earth. Part of it is that many of the imperial laws in place make no sense to her, or me for that matter. She keeps trying to repeal the land-tie laws or at least have them lessened. To her, and to both of us, they sound too far akin to slavery or serfdom. Her latest sortie caused a counter-strike by the Minister of Fall. He said that if she disagreed with the law so much, that he should be allowed to handle the land and tax responsibilities since they were so closely tied with the judiciary anyway."

"Oh," Gyousou said with a head shake.

"But in truth it wasn't the first time the Daishikou has tried to expand his area of authority. Fifty years ago he tried to take over the military courts. A few years after Risai shot him down on that one he moved on to the Ministry of Spring saying that the laws and rites of heaven should be handled in court the same as the kingdoms laws."

"So you're saying that the Daishikou is making a nuisance of himself?"

"Not... not exactly," Taiki said hesitantly. "He... he just doesn't like the impropriety of a court run by a Royal Consort and a kirin. He thinks that I... that I am too kind-hearted to lead the land in the state that it is in, and he outright dislikes Yuka for many of the choices she has made."

"Such as?"

"He doesn't like many of her cultural campaigns, and the way she has caused a population shift to the south gives him hives. He hates the skyways, though I don't see why since it had cut down on banditry along the roads by thirty percent. He really, _really_ hates her hunter-warrior's guilds for the killing of youma since the sort of men and women who generally sign up for that sort of lifestyle are usually troublemakers who like to thumb their noses at the law in the first place. He's not a big fan of her policy of economic sanctions either since many of the sanctions she and I have put into place have tread on his toes. He likes to use technicalities of the law to get around her whenever he can."

Gyousou gave what his kirin said and what his kirin did _not_ say about the minister some thought.

"So, not entirely a _bad_ minister," he concluded. "But you feel he is a little on the inflexible side."

"They don't take bribes, but it bothers me a little that Choushi doesn't faithfully report the goings on of the ministers," Taiki added. "Oddly though, Yuka seems to think that this isn't a bad thing. She said that she'd rather have him in place reporting the major infractions and letting the minor ones slide. She seems to think that court officials will be more likely to trust him if he doesn't go reporting every little thing. That doesn't make sense to me."

"Allow me to ask you this, in each case where the Daishikou has encroached on another's authority has it had anything to do with movements made by the two of you to steer the laws?"

"The time when he tried to take over military courts was right after I asked Yuka to send general Asen into exile rather than have him executed," Taiki said with a nod. "We won, but the Ministry of Fall hasn't been an ally of ours ever since that time. I think he doesn't like the way we work. He often accuses Yuka of doing too much, and me of not doing enough."

Gyousou nodded and set the report aside, then picked up the next. It was going to be a long afternoon.


	12. A Caelo Usque Ad Centrum

**A Caelo Usque Ad Centrum (from the sky to the center)**

Dressed in an ensemble of amber-colored silk embroidered with crysanthemums in scarlet thread and trimmed with brown fur (for the floors were cold even in the royal palace), Yuka mentally reviewed the gifts she had ordered sent to each foreign palace for New Years and partly dreaded what gifts some of them might think to send to her.

Kei was never a problem, she and Youko exchanged gifts like two friends exchanging presents for christmasu. Ryuu's new king sent gifts sort of by-the-book, Yuka thought that he probably had one of the officials in his Ministry of Heaven pick out something appropriate. Likewise with Hou, though the new queen picked by Houki was a bit eccentric, and sent her some odd presents sometimes. (Yuka's personal theory was that Tentei reacted to its/His prior mistakes by swinging directly in the opposite direction and hoping for the best.) However, En and Han, two nations with old kings that she didn't dare offend, were the ones she was most concerned about.

"Let's just hope that there are no more kimono's from the Ever-letch!" Yuka muttered to herself.

Ever-letch was Yuka's personal nickname for the troublesome and slightly letcherous Ever-king of En. En-ou just seemed to delight in dancing along the edge of what could be considered scandalous and offensive behavior.

_:I mean, he knows I'm technically married for heaven's sake, he was there when the proxy ceremony took place and he still has the very nerve to send suggestive presents to me, is he __**trying**__ to start a diplomatic incident?!:_

He'd actually been the stand-in at the wedding for the absent and unconscious king of Tai (and he'd used his stand-in status to try to get away with stealing a kiss from her to "seal the deal" which Yuka had rebuffed). Ever since then he'd taken every opportunity to act like a pervy womanizer with her. Yuka wasn't fooled for a second into thinking he actually had feelings for her, Naotaka Komatsu just reveled in being _utterly_ inappropriate. He was _that_ sort of person. And the longer the lecture she wrote him in reply to his shenanigans, the more he seemed to like it. Weirdo. A few years ago he had actually sent her a lovely kimono, complete with _under_kimono. The note he'd attached said something along the lines of "hoping she enjoyed the nostalgic reminder of their shared homeland" but Yuka had seen right through it to the very grave impropriety of such a gift. In their "shared homeland," a man only dressed a woman from head to toe because he wanted to undress her later! He knew it was inappropriate when he'd sent it to her, which was precisely why he did it.

_:That ever-letch and his damned sly sense of humor,:_ Yuka thought irritatedly, feeling a headache coming on already.

Aside of En, there was also Han to worry about. Yuka wasn't quite sure how _that_ had become a worry. For the first decade or so of Yuka and Taiki taking the reigns in Tai, their diplomatic relations with Han had gone as well as they had ever seemed to previously. After a few small initial gifts to break the ice, trade relations between them went swimmingly, even better when Yuka's engineers finished redesigning the ports to run more efficiently and safely. She'd exchanged polite notes with the reportedly somewhat eccentric king, and diplomacy between the two nations went well, though of course they were not on the same intimate level as Kei or even the inappropriate En.

Then one year, Taiki had seemed to think it a fine idea that Han-ou should have a picture of the two of them since the kirin had visited that court while on his diplomatic mission to Ren the first time Taiki had been in this realm. So the little artist had sketched one of Yuka in one of her finest hanfuu along with one of himself in court zhishen and sent it along with the usual greeting-present. Ever since that time the emperor of Han had sent personal greetings to her, in particular. It seemed that whatever Taiki had painted of her had made an impression on the man. Yuka wasn't so certain she shouldn't be weirded out by it. She was still finding diplomatic excuses to refuse his numerous requests to come and visit her face to face. The impropriety of the man coming to visit while her husband, the king of Tai, was out of commission was holding him off quite well. Still, she was never certain if the presents he sent were going to be acceptable or if she was going to have to find a politely diplomatic way to refuse the gift and then spend weeks smoothing over ruffled feathers.

_:Well, if the present is inappropriate this time I can at least hand it off to someone else. Let the real king worry about soothing Han-ou's slighted feelings or taking the Ever-letch to task about his behavior!:_ Yuka thought with a small smile at the thought that it would be only just a little while longer until she could be free of all of this nonsense.

There was a smaller audience chamber in the southern section of the outer palace that Yuka used to receive foreign envoys, it was a little more intimate without loosing any royal dignity, and it took the servants less time to set up than the grand audience chamber where she and Taiki would have assemble the full court before the empty throne and go through the usual rigamrole with the gong and all of that. This chamber had a smaller floor, only one small step up, barely a dais at all, and a simple, pretty chair instead of an actual throne. Even so, Yuka was seated on a small, scarlet cushion embroidered with golden phoenixes next to the empty chair, signifying her acting as what _she_ would have called a regent (though this world had no real concept for regents in precise terms) for the king.

The first envoy to walk across the chamber and bow politely to the empty throne and then to her was from Ryuu and they presented a very lovely tea service with the compliments of the ruler of Ryuu and the hope of a felicitous New Year. Yuka thanked them according to ceremony. They drank a cup of tea together and discussed poetry, then the envoy bowed out, duty done. The next envoy was from Hou with a lovely set of fine furs and a beautiful calligraphy set. The gift was accepted and gratitude expressed, tea was drank and on to the next. In addition to the lovely new violin that Youko had sent her in reply to the hand-wound music box that Yuka had ordered made for her, the envoy sent a messenger bird from Youko, probably with a reply from her last "letter." More tea and greetings. Then came En.

"Ohh..." Yuka said, having to rely on decades of training her facial expressions when presented the present from the Ever-king by the hapless envoy, who was sweating bullets. "How... nice..." she finally managed.

The gifts were fans, which in and of themselves were quite appropriate. However, these fans were of the calligraphers variety, and the messages that the King of En had chosen to scawl on them in his best penmanship were pick up lines. Bad ones.

"Send a call up to Mt. Ka, because they've lost one of their Tenyo?" Yuka read aloud. She picked up another one and opened it. "You must be exhausted from running through my mind all night?" And a third. "Do you believe in love at first sight or should I come visit again?" They got steadily worse from there. The poor sucker that the Ever-king had dragooned into service had this despairing panicked look, like he could literally see his career or his life ending right before him.

"I would normally thank you on my husband's behalf," she said as she gestured that the poor man be seated to share tea. "But I honestly cannot say what he might think about them."

The envoy swallowed nervously, clearly having heard of the emperor of Tai's martial prowess and clearly took comfort in the fact that it was a known fact among royals that the Peace-king could not take offense for someone coming on to his wife because he was out of commission.

"Please convey to your king Tai's greetings and well-wishes," Yuka said, calmly. "And also that the kimono he sent the other year was quite the wrong size for his majesty."

All of this was said with a perfectly straight face and a calm sip of tea. The envoy tried unsuccessfully to disguise his relief.

_:I wonder what this poor fellow has done to irk that man. Maybe he has a daughter and Shouryuu is trying to get at her. I wouldn't put it past the old letch!:_

The king of Han's gift was not so outrageous, but was still slightly inappropriate in its own way. Hair combs. Beautiful hair combs of carved jade and pearls with a bevy of hair pins (the kind that were decorative and not useful in combat). It was a gift that was clearly aimed at Yuka personally and thus it strayed dangerously close to courtship territory. Yuka wasn't sure if it was true in this world, but in the world she had come from, historically haircombs could be given as a gift to signify intent to marry. To refuse the present outright would cause offense, but Yuka did not accept it right away either, instead she asked the very beautiful lady that Han-ou had sent as an envoy to sit down and have tea and listened with half an ear to the poetry while she ruminated on what to do with the situation. The poor lady had clearly been left with orders to recite love poetry to Yuka, and seemed to be taking up her duty with an enthusiasm that made Yuka think that perhaps everyone in the kingdom of Han was as eccentric as their king was rumored to be.

_ :I may have to start being more firm with the Emperor of Han, otherwise he'll become just as wildly inappropriate, in a different way, as the Emperor of En. I can't allow the shuukou to even hint that there might be anything untoward in our diplomatic relations or it will open up whole new troubles...:_

Her thoughts trailed off for a moment, caught on a snag.

_:Ah! that's right, I'm not going to have to worry about this for much longer. King Gyousou will be back on his throne in a day or two, and he can deal with this stuff however he wants to. I doubt he'll be much interested in any of the courts insinuations one way or the other since he's an __**actual**__ anointed king rather than a mere Consort and he can rule outright.:_

After a long pause, Yuka eventually accepted the greetings of the king of Han but requested the emissary wait for her to write a scroll in reply. The naughty thought that she ought to have the _real_ king write back to Han-ou in his masculine handwriting thanking him for the haircombs made her smile a little. She'd have to figure out a reply that was cautiously grateful but at the same time slightly chiding about the present he'd sent her.

The early afternoon string of diplomatic receptions was over with and Yuka arranged a dinner in the west dining room for the envoys, with herself and Taiki if it could be managed. As the palace staff was handling that matter, Yuka requested to meet with Risai to go over the plans for security during the minor affair. It was little more than dinner, but it was important that nothing happen to her important guests, it would reflect badly if the diplomatic envoys were killed inside Whitejewel Palace, and the last thing she needed at the end of her tenure was the kind of diplomatic mess that something like that would bring.

_:What to wear?:_ she wondered to herself.

Though Yuka was the Royal Consort, she didn't actually have much in the way of nice clothes. Certainly she did not have the entire closets full of silk robes and jewels she had heard of in other kingdoms like Kyou. Tai was still very poor (_despite_ her work on stabilizing the economy!) and she always felt guilty spending money on clothing when there were people who were worried about boots for the winter. She had a very modest clothing budget, and (under the table of course) Youko helped her out by giving her a discount on cotton cloth from her kingdom.

:_Not the yellow, that makes me look sallow.:_ she decided.

The color was supposed to be lucky but it looked terrible on Yuka's winter complexion. She couldn't wear black because that was reserved for the emperor and court officials. Yuka looked her clothing rack up and down, as a maid pulled out for her to view the different ensembles she owned.

_:It's New Years, so something festive perhaps. I just wore the emerald green one the other day, the purple is being washed, that mauve is not season-appropriate nor is the teal. The cut of the that one is not appropriate for the occasion.:_

"Milady, if I may," the servant said with a bow.

She pulled out a beautiful deep blue and white hanfu with an indigo overskirt and cranes embroidered in silver. It was also _real_ silk and satin, instead of the fine cotton-silk Yuka usually wore. It was very beautiful, and clearly special even for a court occasion with the Royal Consort. The last time Yuka had worn it had been during a State Visit from the Queen of Hou.

"It's beautiful," she acknowledged to her servant. "But not quite appropriate for the occasion, just a _little_ too fancy. We don't want me to look like I'm trying too hard. No, the apricot silk, I think, will be just fine, with the matching peach colored jade hair ornaments."

"Yes, milady," the girl said, clearly disappointed.

The ensemble she'd chosen was completely appropriate but a little boring. It had only a little trim and was brocaded in white rather than embroidered. It was lovely in its own way, but a little on the prim and stuffy side. It was one of those ensembles she wore when Yuka wanted to play up that, despite her young appearance she was, in fact, a married woman. Yuka attended to paperwork in her office until it was an hour before the early dinner reception. Then her maids made up her face and helped her dress in the clothes she'd picked out, put up her hair. Her one concession to vanity was a particularly lovely set of hair pins with peach-jade beads that hung down and clicked softly together next to her face. Her battlemaids fell into step around her, dressed as ever in their courtly attire.

Yuka both liked and disliked these "social" occasions. On the one hand, it was the closest she got to a real party, one where half of the people on the guest list weren't secretly wishing she'd choke on a fishbone. On the other hand, she was the Royal Consort and had unfortunately gained a reputation for wit, so at all times she had to be both graceful, without relying too much on her beauty or flaunting it, and witty without making it seem like she was being forward. In the give and take of conversation, even between sycophants, Yuka still had certain lines to walk.

In the apartment next to hers, Taiki dressed in his charcoal-black imperial robe, the ceremonial one he wore on special occasions when he was acting as Taiho. She thought he always looked so cute in his imperial robes with his long hair left loose to flow down his back. He had one clip with a black-gem butterfly sparkling above his right ear and a pin with a rose of light purple jade and a tassle to match dangling from above the row of frog-and-toggle fastenings that held his black zhishen closed. His folded-over cuffs were of grey brocade silk to match his eyes.

"You're wearing that to dinner?" he asked, dubiously as he spied the ensemble she'd chosen to wear. "I mean, there's nothing _wrong_ with it, it's just a bit..."

"Dowdy, I know," Yuka agreed with him, showing him a one of her rare, genuine smiles. That one came with dimples, and they didn't show up often. "But it seems that Han-ou is at it again, and the Ever-letch is worse than ever!"

"Don't tell me he sent you a yukata this time," Taiki said, his voice clearly conveying his dread that the man might have actually tried it.

"Nothing like _that_, thank Tentei, and his gift would have made me laugh, if I hadn't been so dismayed. He is utterly terrible, it's no wonder the man doesn't have a wife if he has to rely on his wit to capture a woman's attention. I mean _really_. "If I said you had a gorgeous body would you hold it against me?" That's sexual harassment!"

"What really concerns me is the fact that you always accept them on Gyousou-sama's behalf..." Taiki said, with rare amusement.

"What is accepted on my behalf?" the man himself inquired curiously, clearly having just walked out to stretch from being cooped up in the office all day for he still had a small stack of forms in one hand.

"You've received a set of hair combs from Han-ou," Yuka said with a teasing smile, her earlier good humor making the dimples more pronounced. "Shall we put them on you? I'm sure they'll look lovely."

"Why am I receiving hair combs from the King of Han?" he inquired with a raised brow.

Apparently the gift of hair combs had a similar meaning in this world to what they had once had in her homeland.

"I drew him a picture of Yuka and I a few years ago and he's been sending weird presents ever since," Taiki replied with a wincing smile.

"You should be glad it was just hair combs this year and not that one diplomatic hairball six years ago," Yuka closed her eyes in pained remembrance of the headache.

"Oh?" Gyousou asked, clearly curious.

"Han-ou returned Taiki's favor of a picture, with a life sized portrait of himself. Fortunately for everyone concerned it was not au naturale."

"Yeah, he was only _half_ naked!" Taiki teased her.

Gyousou's reaction was somewhere between a surprised gape, and a sudden laugh.

"It's not funny!" Yuka protested hotly, scolding the both of them for their levity at her expense. "_You_ try finding a diplomatic way to scold a foreign king about his inappropriate gift while keeping in mind that he's one of your single biggest and most lucrative trading contributors!"

"I can see where you might have some difficulties," Gyousou said, still chuckling.

"Perhaps I should pass on the King of En's well wishes to you too, your majesty," Yuka said with sharp politeness. "I do not have any of his fans on me at present, but he did say-"

"Now now, Yuka, you know that Shouryuu was just trying to stir things up," Taiki said hastily. "I don't think Gyousou-sama should be sexually harassed by a foreign power."

"Implying that it's just fine for _me_..." Yuka grumbled. The she smiled her sharp smile again. "I think I will have knives engraved with my replies to his little witticisms."

"And this is why he keeps at it," Taiki replied. "Enki says your responses make him laugh for days every time he sends you something."

"On second thought, it would be a waste of perfectly good steel," Yuka replied, nodding sagely. "It won't be my lookout anymore anyway, I'll just leave it for your king to deal with."

The amused little smile she sent in the direction of said king spoke louder than words to the fact that she was rather enjoying the thought of his future discomfort in having to deal with the Ever-king and his notorious sense of humor.

"If some inappropriate fans and a few hair combs are all I have to deal with in the next few days I shall count myself most fortunate," Gyousou replied with his usual seriousness, but then a certain glint of amusement entered his eyes as he added.

"However, it would be a shame to waste such a wit as Tai's Royal Consort is rumored to be when it could be put to a most productive use for crown and country. I believe that there are diplomatic positions in both kingdoms that currently stand open. I sounds to me as though Han-ou would be particularly appreciative of closer diplomatic relations with Tai."

"It's not the _diplomatic_ relations he wishes to deepen," Yuka muttered darkly with a frown in his direction.

"Be at peace," Tai-ou soothed her. "Even though the king of Han is rumored to be an eccentric sort of man, I very much doubt he would jeopardize the good relations these kingdoms share by pursuing the matter."

"You're right of course," Yika relented with good grace. "Eccentric he may be, but Han-ou is reportedly a good king, he would not risk upsetting foreign affairs with Tai by taking any truly objectionable actions."

"It is a pity you will not join us for dinner Gyousou-sama," Taiki said wistfully. "It would be wonderful to have you at the table with us."

"Patience," Gyousou replied gently, holding up the sheaf of notes he was currently studying. "I will be at the helm of state soon enough, my kirin."

"And when he is, I can cut and run!" Yuka said cheerfully.

She turned to Gyousou.

"Study hard tonight while we're at dinner, then you can rescue me from all this work that much sooner."

"What work?" Taiki demanded. "This is the most fun you get all year!"

"Yes, but even this fun is work," Yuka replied. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be sparkling and witty and charming non-stop for hours?"

"And you do it all stuffed into a hanfu that looks like something my granny would have worn to terrify my little brother's marriage prospect with her intimidating demeanor," Taiki teased.

"I say again" Yuka said firmly. "_That_ is the point of the ensemble. I don't want any shuukou or those foreign dignitaries getting any funny ideas about me just because I'm all smiles and wit to them for an evening."

"I'll bet Han-ou would like to give you something to smile over," Taiki said with a rare form of teasing for him as they walked on together to attend the State Dinner.

* * *

Gyousou watched the two partners wander off to their State Dinner with a feeling of wistful envy. It wasn't that he wanted to attend the dinner with them, but the sense of the long-standing, easy camaraderie between them left him feeling a little left out. He had always intended that _he_ should be the one at his kirin's side, running the kingdom and bringing prosperity to Tai, it made him feel sad that things had turned out so differently.

_:I suppose I must content myself with going from here_,: he reminded himself.

It would not be long before Taiki turned his attention back to his rightful king, after all it was they who were destined to be partners. The young-looking Royal Consort was a matter to be settled with at another day.

_:Though truthfully, she is beginning to grow on me just a little bit_,: he admitted to himself.

She was sensible, and frugal (which he highly approved of) and she cared deeply about Taiki and had made every attempt to understand her adopted land and its people. What he had read of the notes she'd made for him were full of observations and astute coments about the way people acted or how they lived with their environment and situations in life. If he had to be saddled with an unexpected bride, he could think of a number of examples of women that he would have disliked to have around him.

:_Such as __**any**__ of the previous kings concubines_,: Gyousou thought with a grimace of remembered distaste.

To a woman, _all_ of them had been frivolous, obsessed with clothing and jewelry, and forever involved with petty power games to increase their status as ornaments to the crown. Not a one of them concerned themselves with where the money for their ridiculously elaborate silk and satin and clothing jeweled accessories had come from (or which hard-working farmer or fisher might be doing without so that they could wear it). They had all been able to read and recite poetry and play instruments but not a single one of them would ever have concerned themselves with matters of finance… to them, budgets had been things that happened to _other_ people.

_:There are certainly worse options than Lady Yuka to have propping up the throne,:_ he thought with amusement.

"A copper kan for your thoughts, my king?" General Risai Ryuushi said, as she stepped from around the corner with a rolled up scroll (which he discovered after she handed it to him and he glanced over it contained the security protocols she had put into place for the dinner that night).

"My Kouri seems all grown up, dining on his own with the Royal Consort," he said instead, letting a small trace of melancholy slip into his voice.

"This is the happiest we've seen him in decades," Risai replied with a small smile. "Like the rest of us, he waits eagerly for you to take your place on the throne soon."

"Do you think the Royal Consort is as eager as she makes herself out to be?" he asked next.

It was one thing to hear her joke about being freed from the burdens of rule, but there were many, many people who had sacrificed and killed and died in pursuit of a power that was not theirs to claim. Asen himself had pretended to be pleased for Gyousou on his ascension even while he had plotted behind his back to bring him down. It was possible that Lady Yuka might have grown comfortable in her position of power and influence in Court and might not be as pleased as she claimed to be to give it up. He felt a small stab of concern when his trusted General Risai hesitated.

"Perhaps it is not my place to say…" she began. "While among a certain circle it is not _great_ secret, and I happened to have overheard the entire matter but it was _not_ told to me _directly_ you understand… it is a matter that is intensely private, but at the same time it is pertinent to the question, and a matter of concern to me as well."

Gyousou raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"It is very unusual for you to be so circumspect General," he prompted.

He couldn't really come right out and say 'put with it' for the decision to speak on what she felt was a matter of discretion was hers to make, but he did feel a small pang of impatience.

"Lady Yuka, as you have heard and can see for yourself, was a school-aged child on her world when she crossed over to help her school-mate, whom she had known as Kaname Takasoto. You may have also heard that she and Youko Nakajima, who is called Sekishi the Regnant Queen of Kei, have a long history together. However, what you may not know is that part of that history involved Kei-ou's ascension to the throne."

Intrigued, in spite of the fact that what he was hearing was clearly private information (and private information that was acquired without the subjects consent at that). Gyousou leaned in to listen.

"Kei-ou was a Taika like Taiki and the pair from En," Risai explained. "Keiki, as the story was related to me, appeared before her one day and got her to accept his oath of loyalty without her ever knowing what it was at the time she accepted it. Lady Yuka was her school mate at this time and was swept along with her when the former Kou-ou released the shirei of his Kourin upon them into this world. I am not aware of the particulars, but somehow Lady Yuka wound up on the opposite side of Kei-ou. She worked for Kou-ou, who ordered her to destroy her friend before she could ascend to the throne of Kei. It is a fact that Lady Yuka took up the sword against her friend because Kou-ou told her that if she slayed Kei-ou, Yuka would ascend the throne instead."

There was a long appalled moment where Gyousou was too surprised to speak. It took a moment for his brain to process the statement but immediately afterwards, all of the various incongruities took precedence in his mind, starting with

"But that's not how it works."

He should know, Asen had tried very nearly the same thing with him to have Tai's throne as his own.

"The world they come from is very very different, Your Majesty," Risai replied. "I am given to understand that in the long history of their world, such a way of coming into power may actually be the norm for them. It stands to reason that, given this, it would be not unexpected that Yuka would accept the information as a matter of course."

"She saw no problem with… with murdering a rival to power?" Gyousou said, surprised.

"In her defense," Risai said in an even tone. "Lady Yuka was very young, and as a kaikyaku she did not even have the ability that a taika would of understanding the language spoken to her by any but a sage, thus, she would have had no way of sorting out truth from lies. The former Kou-ou was clever enough to keep her isolated from anyone who might tell her differently, so that she would have been forced to accept whatever he told her at face value."

"It seems a great deal to take on faith," Gyousou said. "Did you not say they were friends? She saw no trouble with taking arms against her friend?"

"From what I gather," Risai replied. "They were associates but not close until after their altercation. I believe they were also rivals over a fellow schoolmate's affection though I do not know that last for certain."

"Was it Kouri?" Gyousou asked curiously and looking almost amused as she'd ever seen him. "I know that he come from their world as well."

Risai too though the notion to be a vaguely amusing one, but more along the lines of 'it would have been hilarious if it had happened that way' but had to reply in the negative.

"No, it was someone else they both knew. Seikishi did not come to know our kirin until after she had brought him back to this world. The details are still a bit fuzzy but I am under the impression that Lady Yuka returned to hourai after the altercation between herself and the Royal Kei then came back here to help Kouri and subsequently became Royal Consort in the process."

"Everything she has said to me indicates that he is eager to be quit of her post," Gyousou said. "You have known her for a long time, do you think she is as eager to be gone as she claims, General?"

"Even after so long an association with her, I… I often have a hard time reading her well Your Majesty," Risai said honestly. "Her alien background often makes her react to things she learns or discovers of this world in unpredictable ways. That, combined with the inscrutable face that she's developed over decades of political maneuvering, has made it very difficult for me to know what she's thinking or feeling on anything at any given time. Part of me wants to excuse it as youthful naiveté, but on the other hand I cannot quite bring myself to discount the fact that she was ruthless and ambitious enough to raise a sword against her own schoolmate."

The was a long silence while Gyousou ruminated on what she had said. Finally, he pronounced

"I do not believe that it will be a matter to be overly concerned with right now. First things first is restoring the throne and cleaning house. The Royal Consort and any ambitions she may or may not have will simply have to wait."

"Don't you think you're taking this too lightly your majesty? Lady Yuka's hold over the court is a strong one, if she chose to manipulate a way to retaining her power there is a chance she could do it. There is a precedent in her past behavior for ruthless pursuit of a throne."

"To be honest, there is a precedent in my own past for the same thing, otherwise I would not have organized the court to my liking and then went on Shouzan," he said with a slightly rueful shrug.

"You would not have betrayed a comrade for it sir," Risai rebutted immediately.

Gyousou looked her over with a weighty look, measuring all she had said, and what she did not say. Finally he said

"You do not favor the Royal Consort, do you General?"

There was another long silence as Risai gave his question real consideration. At last she said

"I am not _sure_ of her, even after all of this time. I have worked alongside her, and along side her battlemaids, for decades; I have seen how she works, and though she works hard, there is something in the way of her mind that never quite ceases to make me worry. She's… she's _cunning_ sir; crafty, devious. She has spies _everywhere_. Did you know she makes a regular habit of blackmailing officials who can't be bribed into doing what she wants?! Granted, they're all corrupt and sort of have it coming anyway, but— She's disconcertingly good at manipulating people to do what needs doing."

"So in other words, an able politician and not a warrior," he said with some wry humor.

"She's been on the battlefield a time or two," Risai corrected. "And I can't fault her behavior on or off it, but I couldn't fault Asen's either before he betrayed us all. I want to like the Royal Consort, and after all this time she has to have more than earned my trust, but I just can't seem to shake my worry that things are going to end badly with her."

"There is one question that no-one has ever answered or even, it seems, thought to ask," Gyousou said, a little hesitantly.

"What is that, sir?"

"Why choose her?" he asked. "It seems strange to me. Even if they were desperate, there had to have been options other than a half-trained kaikyaku-child who probably couldn't read or speak the language on her own. You, for example would have been a more sensible choice; you're older, more experienced in the world, a native and—"

But Risai seemed to be smothering her laughter for some reason.

"Sir!" she said, nearly giggling into her hand, cheeks turning pink for suppressed mirth. "Your Majesty, while it honors me greatly that you would see me as a more compatible choice for your illustrious self as a Royal Consort… I am afraid that everyone with any input into the matter already knew that I am not a viable option."

"Oh?" Gyousou said, taken aback. This was news to him. "How is that?"

"I am already life-bonded, Your Majesty," General Risai informed him. "And I am quite content with she who awaits me at home."

"Ohh," Gyousou said, comprehension dawning.

It was not at all uncommon in the military. In fact, it almost seemed more like the norm than the exception to have such life pairings among the soldiery. Tentei blessed such pairings equally when it came time to tie a branch on a ribouku so there was nothing terribly unusual about it to his eyes (though he had heard that down in Kou the former king had forbidden such marriages by law, but they had a lot of stupid laws in Kou, like Hanjuu not owning land or attending school).

**_Authors Note: Yes, Kou is the Alabama_********_of the Twelve Kingdoms (no offense to anyone who lives in Alabama_********_)._******

"So you see, I was sadly not an option, for much as I love Tai and Taiki, I could not bring myself to set aside the woman I love in order to give the pretense the full commitment it would have required. Furthermore, I know myself well, Your Majesty," she said. "I am effective enough on a battlefield, but dealing with the politics of the court is another matter entirely. I would have suited that aspect of rule not as well as what would be needed."

Risai frowned, then slowly added

"Now that I think on it, when myself and the other rulers met to discuss candidates for the post, Lady Yuka's name came up for precisely those reasons."

Gyousou looked curious.

"Explain," he commanded politely.

"Lady Yuka had been a pawn to a man of great power who had known how to manipulate her, she had been exposed to her own ruthless side as well as the former Royal Kou's ruthless manipulations. She would know better than anyone when someone is making moves on their own agenda, and when someone is trying to maneuver her for their own ends. Her Majesty, the Royal Kei, felt that the knowledge of herself and of the sort of ruthless manipulations that Lady Yuka had already been exposed to at that point would do more than anything to prepare her for the power games of the Royal Court. The Royal Kei said then that self-knowledge in one who would rule was more important than anything except knowledge of others, and she added that even knowledge of others begins with being able to see past oneself."

"A wise woman, the Royal Kei," Gyousou nodded.

"Given that Lady Yuka's half-a-reign has lasted longer than the last three anointed kings of the kingdom of Shun put together, I suppose I will have to agree with the recommendation."

Her tone said that she did not have to _like_ it.

"Why the sudden curiosity, Your Majesty?" Risia asked curiously. "Do you feel her to pose a threat?"

"No," Gyousou replied bluntly. "But I have been considering a number of strategies for my upcoming re-conquering of Tai's northern provinces, and the one I have that I feel would be best would rely on keeping the Royal Consort into place for some small time yet. I needed to know whether she might make a play of her own and whether I might have to find some way to deal with her or not."

"You want to keep her in place?" Risai said, not sounding like she liked the notion.

"For a small time," Gyousou allowed. "As I said, it's only one strategy I am considering, but looking at it from many angles it seems to be the best so far. After all, if Ansen must be given his choice of targets, I would prefer to present him with one that will at least be ale to fight back."


	13. Obliti Privatorum, Publica Curate

Obliti Privatorum, Publica Curate (Forget private affairs, take care of public ones)

Gyousou felt a bit miffed that the Royal Consort had stolen Taiki for the evening. He knew he had no cause for such a feeling, he was the one who had decided that they should keep his awakening a secret until the time that he was ready to act , in order for those he wished to act against to not have time to escape him. But still, he missed his kirin. In order that he should miss Taiki less, and hopefully be back on his throne that much sooner, Gyousou steadily worked his way through reports and counter-reports, gaining a better picture of the state of affairs as they were to that day. It was late in the evening when he paused again, stepping out onto the walkway that led to the emperors garden for some fresh night air when Kouri came hurriedly before him, still dressed in his ceremonial court zhishen.

"Ah! Thaere you are Kou—"

The king immediately turned to smile at his kirin but the smile faded at the agitation on Taiki's face.

"What is the matter Kouri?" he inquired, concerned.

"Gyousou-sama, I'm not sure what to do, and for once neither is Yuka!" Taiki said. "And she almost always thinks of something."

"What happened?" he asked, his concern growing into alarm at the state his kirin was in, nervously pacing in front of him.

"We went down to the dinner we set up for the foreign envoys and everything was going as well as they usually do. They were all nice to me and Yuka was shmoozing, everyone was laughing and having a good time... when all of a sudden the envoy from Han stands up and throws off her over-robe to reveal that under it he's wearing imperial robes with the seal of Han on them."

Gyousou's jaw nearly dropped as he quickly put together the implications of what Taiki had just said.

"The Royal Han has showed up in a completely unannounced State Visit, disguised as an ordinary envoy?" he said.

"Not only that, but right in front of everybody, he gave Yuka a golden lily!"

A golden lily was a royal request for marriage.

The Royal Tai stared at his kirin for a long moment, completely surprised. He had heard from En-ou that the emperor of Han was an eccentric fellow, but this went waaay beyond eccentricity. The king of Han had come to a foreign nation unannounced and essentially uninvited, (though Han and Tai shared a close trade-relationship) while the King of Tai was known to be unable to receive him, for the express purpose of propositioning said king's lawful wife! It was a diplomatic nightmare no matter which way one looked at it. At best it could be interpreted as an inappropriate gesture of goodwill, but more likely people were going to call it like they saw it; the man had insulted the Royal Tai (and by extension his kingdom) by walking into the Royal Palace, behind the kings back, and attempting to abscond with his wife. If Heaven's Law did not forbid one kingdoms army from invading another, the insult would have been an act of war!

_:Damage control,:_ he thought quickly.

"Did she accept?" he inquired urgently.

"Of course not," Taiki said with a note of scorn at the very idea in his voice. "Yuka wouldn't leave me or Tai, and certainly not like this! Even with you on the throne this would be a major debacle. No, she faked a faint and her maids carried her away before Han-ou could offer to examine her or something."

They were about to continue to discuss the situation when the king and his kirin were distracted by the sound of a guitern being strummed nearby. A masculine voice sang out into the night-still gardens, coming from the direction of Meiden Palace where the kirin and the Royal Consort resided.

**_"Most beautiful lady of the frozen snows, your eyes are like crystals, your lips like a roooooose. Your hair is as dark as the clearest night skies, come let me near to drown in your eyyyyyyes."_**

"You gotta be kidding me," Taiki said in dismay.

"I hope so, his singing is terrible," was all Gyousou could manage.

_:If she were actually my real wife, like Isana was, I would have him at sword point right now,:_ Gyousou thought with wry amusement, as the foreign king went on to describe her raven hair and her willowy form in loving, off-key verse.

_:I think this must be worth putting off paperwork for a little while!:_ Gyousou thought as he snuck round the side of his garden Gyousou hopped over the short wall that separated the gardens of Seiden Palace (where the Royal Quarters were) and into Meiden Palace through the back way, where he was intercepted by one of Yuka's female bodyguards. The guard, recognizing him, bowed and let him pass through.

Finally, apparently unable to take anymore, a small bevy of Yuka's room maids came out, bowed down low to the visiting king and informed him quite firmly that Meiden Palace was off limits to men, and that he was to vacate the premises immediately unless invited in by Her Grace. It was a rule of the Imperial Palace.

"Really?" Gyousou questioned softly of his kirin, who had shadowed his footsteps with the ease of long practice. Kouri nodded, confirming it.

"Meiden Palace is my jurisdiction as given over to me before you left," he said. "As such I was able to make that decree banning all men from Meiden Palace. It was the best way to keep Yuka safer from accusations of infidelity. Many regard her battlemaids as those who keep men away from Yuka than bodyguards hired to protect her. It's kinda funny that way."

There had been some reconstruction on Meiden Palace since he had ordered it remade for his kirin to live in nearby. It was more defensible now, with guards-walks along the upper floor on the outside all around it, and archers nests at convenient vantage points. The military man in him appreciated the defenses even as he felt in his heart that they should be unnecessary in the Imperial Palace. The interior as well had been remodeled as well; divided into two distinct living quarters, more like two houses sandwiched together, with the Royal Consorts quarters in the more vulnerable position at the outside where attackers might enter. The image of a loyal guardian sleeping across a threshold came to mind.

When he arrived in what looked to be her office, the only condition that Yuka looked to be in was purely and simply fit to be tied.

"That idiot! Has he lost his mind! Is he trying to make my life difficult?" He could hear her cursing the poor king of Han. When he entered the room he caught her in mid-pace and when she looked up at him her eyes snapped dark fire and there was an angry scowl was out on her face.

"So I hope you plan to let him down gently," Gyousou said in amusement, leaning against the doorframe. Yes, the situation was a diplomatic nightmare, but Yuka looked as mad as a wet hen which leant a certain amount of humor to the situation. Or rather, there was something about her that prompted him to tease her about it.

"The only thing I plan to let down right now is this vase on the top of his head!" Yuka snapped.

"Don't make an already difficult mess even worse than it is by adding bodily harm into the mix," Gyousou cautioned her.

"Can I at least pour the water on him?"

He laughed a little and shook his head.

"Oh sure, _you_ can laugh," Yuka muttered. "You're not stuck inadvertently neck-deep in trouble."

"In this case, I'm right here with you," Gyousou corrected. "Han-ou's actions affect me as much as they do you, perhaps more for I will be the one expected to respond to them. After all, the man is trying to steal my lawful wife."

"You think we could pass it all off as a joke?" Yuka suggested hopefully. "One harmless prank between one ruler to another."

"Do you know of anyone stupid enough to believe such a contention?" Gyousou replied.

"Well we'd better think of something quick, before everyone somehow blames _me_ for this whole mess. That's the way it always goes after all; a popular guy likes a girl, and whether she's interested or not, it's all her fault if he pursues her."

Yuka's voice contained an edge of bitterness that sounded like the ring of experience.

"Maybe you could have him come in and sit down to explain why this is all a bad idea," Taiki suggested hopefully.

"Sweetie. That would be a great idea, except for the part where a strange man is allowed to enter the Royal Consorts chambers alone and unattended. Somehow I don't think that one will pass without comment. Especially in the imperial court. Half of those guys have been trying for years to bust me on an indiscretion charge. They're going to have a field day with this unless we spin it right."

"He's starting on another verse," Taiki warned.

"I think he wrote it himself," Gyousou commented.

"He just compared my skin to the moon, I think you're right," Yuka said. "There's got to be a way out of this mess!"

"I don't think this is something that can be swept under the rug," Gyousou said reluctantly.

"There's a way to handle any situation," Yuka replied absently as she resumed her pacing, clearly thinking at a furious rate.

"You have had to handle enough over the time I've been gone," Gyousou said chivalrously as he rose to walk out onto the balcony to discuss the matter with the King of Han. "I will handle this matter."

"You mustn't!" Yuka protested, grabbing his sleeve. "If you walk out there, then this automatically goes from a less than ideal situation into a full-blown _fiasco_. If you confront him directly, then the King of Han has officially attacked the pride of the King of Tai."

Gyousou found himself suddenly feeling irritated.

_:I know that she's grown accustomed to handling everything on her own, or with Kouri, and I know that I just woke up a day or two ago and she's trying to be considerate of the larger picture by keeping my presence top secret... but still, it's irritating that she doesn't even think to ask me for help!:_

Realistically there was no reason why she would, and every reason why she would try to keep this from becoming a major diplomatic incident by keeping a king's pride from being attacked, but it was still irritating. His pride as a man was certainly taking a beating.

"Whether it is official or not, he has attacked my pride," Gyousou replied. "The only difference is that he planned to get away with all of this while there was nothing I personally would be able to do about it."

"If you reveal yourself now, then your enemies will know you are awake and they'll get away before you are ready to move on them," Yuka insisted. "They'll all bolt back to thier holes and raise thier defenses and your plan to spring a trap on them will be blown. In my mind, keeping the element of surprise is worth more than popping this idiot's romance-bubble."

"Have you another suggestion?" he replied, hiding his rising irritation behind a steely look.

"I have one or two thoughts but none of them seem very good. I could go along with it, pretend to be flattered but shy, and stall him that way. Sadly that would only encourage him, make you look bad and get me kicked out of th court on an indescretion charge."

"Why not just tell him where to stuff his mandolin?" taiki asked. "You've never had any problems driving off unwanted attention before, sometimes with a baseball bat."

"The unwanted attentions have never come from foreign heads of state before," Yuka replied dryly.

"What about that one kimono that Shouryuu sent you?" Taiki argued. "It doesn't get much more inappropriate than that, even if he did send it under the claim of nostalgia for the costume of our people."

Yuka paused and brightened.

"A-ha! Taiki you're a genius! You've just solved the problem!"

"What?" taiki asked. Yuka was already turning to one of her maids.

"Lin!" she commanded. "Go get the kimono, that present from the King of En. Shae! Tell the Royal Han that his song has won my heart over completely and that I will eagerly await him in the blue gazebo, the one off the lotus pond."

"What are you planning?" Gyousou asked, trying not to look alarmed.

"Out you," she shoved him out of her chambers. "I need to change clothes!"

The king found himself abruptly on the other side of the door and it all but shut in his face. He and Taiki looked at each other, both of them clearly mystified. There was rustling and soft thumps and the soft twitterings of a bevy of exited maids but a few minutes later Yuka emerged from her chambers, transformed.

"What is that?" he inquired of the unusual looking costume she wore.

It wasn't entirely _un_like the hanfu he was accustomed to seeing, but there were numerous differences; the belt was wider and tied very, very strangely around the back, the robe was all one piece instead of composed of a top and bottom, the sleeves were so long they almost touched the floor and were embroidered with a pattern of flower petals, and the bottom was one long tube-like piece that fell to her ankles and clearly restricted movement. Her long hair was loose and flowing, her face was painted entirely white with deep red lipstick, making her dark eyes seem wider and larger. Earrings glittered next to her neck making it seem like stars winked out from her hair. She looked so foreign. Exotic.

"Oh! Yuka, what a lovely kimono! You look so pretty in it," Taiki said.

Yuka smiled a glowing genuine smile, complete with dimples.

"Why thank-you Kaname," her look turned sharp and cunning. "Let's just hope it serves its purpose well."

With that, she glided off with careful steps measured so that she would not accidentally trip in her strange costume. Gyousou turned to his kirin.

"Do you have any idea how she intends to solve this?"

"No idea, but I think the kimono probaly has something to do with it. What that is, I can't imagine."

"Well," The king was forced to reluctantly decide. "I suppose we shall have to leave her to it, and hope it works out the way she clearly plans it to."

"Yuka's pretty good with getting the results she wants most times, I guess we'll have to wait and see."

Seeing as they were leaving it up to her, Gyousou went back to his own task, catching up on decades worth of reports and trying to get a complete handle on the situation before he waded in and tried to fix things. He conscientiously did not allow himself to be distracted by thoughts on how the girl might be handling the debacle. What did she think a costume change was going to do? She couldn't honestly think that stalling him was going to help any, if she didn't refuse him things would only get worse for everyone. He didn't want to loose his trade contacts with Han just because of something stupid like this.

It seemed like forever but was only maybe an hour later when the sound of ladies laughter entering the garden announced the return of the girl and her entourage of handmaidens. The easy way they moved, and the fact that they were all smiling was a promising sign. Yuka paused at the edge of the garden and Taiki and Gyousou both stepped out, drawn by curiosity.

"What news?" he asked.

"Taken care of," Yuka said smugly, looking proud of herself.

"Well?" Taiki asked eagerly. "What happened?"

"Han is on the very western edge of this world, and thus they are the farthest from the east, which is where all the meishoku happen. I remembered that, to Han, kaikyaku are considered bad luck, real harbingers of doom and destruction just as they are in Kou. I suppose it's because they don't get many of them as on the east of this world so they only have rumors to go on. Anyway, that Han-ou fell in love with a picture of me. That's not real love, it's being in love with love. I figured that such a weak attachment would be easy to break if he was the one who broke it. I had to gamble that suddenly discovering that I'm a cursed creature from another world would probably do the trick. Should have seen it, I really played up my status as a harbinger of doom, I even thanked him for being willing to bring that bad luck of mine down on his kingdom. He couldn't get out of there fast enough!"

Taiki laughed, albeit a little nervously. His situation was similar in a way.

"I generously agreed to spread the story that his proposal was nothing more than a New Years mix-up with the flowers. He has agreed to generously increase our trade agreements."

Gyousou caught the contented smugness she was radiating and stared in dumbfounded disbelief. A mischievous smile transformed her face into one that looked closer to her physical appearance instead of the cool dignified mask she wore all the time.

_:This woman...:_ he thought, shaking his head.

Not only had she managed to avoid a major diplomatic incident, but she had blackmailed a king now eagre to make reparations and save face for better trading agreements while she was at it. Scary.

"I'm tired, good luck on your plans for national domination," Yuka said, covering a yawn. She bowed politely and took herself and her bevy of maids off to her own quarters to sleep. Gyousou turned back to his reports. It was fortuitous how it had ended, but he really didn't think that that would be the last he would have to do with the matter.


	14. crescit cum commercio civitas

**Crescit Cum Commercio Civitas (Civilization prospers with commerce)**

Throughout the night and next morning, Gyousou came to a better understanding of the state of matters in his kingdom. He came to see that it was not quite as bad as everyone assumed. It was bad, no mistake, but Yuka and Taiki (mostly Yuka by the look of things) had been setting things up for his eventual return. She had decided to tear a page from his book and had slowly but surely been picking out promising and capable people that she thought would make fine ministers, but instead of using the army, Yuka pulled all of hers from the schools, businesses and other various places in the private sector. She hadn't been able to install any of them into administrative positions directly, but she had given a certain amount of patronage and seen to it that her chosen people received assignments that would allow them to gain skills that would be useful.

For example, one fellow graduated from the examinations but was denied even a small position in court, however Yuka had him moved to the trade-city of Sen and placed him in charge of managing the books for the Gyoujou Merchant Consortium, from there she had put him under the secretary of eastern docks in charge of all trade in and out on that side of the river, and from that point moved him over to a secretarial position on the Lower City guardhouse docket, after that he became head secretary of the granaries in the city of Youki in charge of keeping the granary adequately stocked to supply each citizen throughout the winters) then on to the census house in Nanting. It was a very well-rounded education, and based on his performance the man was going to make a brilliant minister with an excellent understanding of the economics of trade Tai depended on, and an appreciation for the difficulties of dealing with Tai's winters. She had a list of such young women and men of potential and integrity about as long as his arm, all of them carefully trained, even nurtured, as a gardener nurtured promising young shoots to grow into mighty oaks.

_:It must really irritate her, having all of these capable people she's been grooming to help take some of the burden, and not able to put them into place to make things easier for her,:_ Gyousou thought pityingly.

He signed off on several forms, recommending that certain people be placed here and there to shore up the various places within the bureaucracies of the various ministries that had been listing badly. She knew where most of the problems were, which was a mercy. Yuka called it "mapping out the rot" where she had several of her own personal spies ferreting out the officials who took bribes and created troubles. Sometimes she was able to reassign them (even if she couldn't demote them or rid herself of them entirely) to harmless busywork or put them in places where they would not be able to do as much damage.

"Your majesty, eighty percent of Tai's forces are assembled and await your command," Risai said, entering with a bow. "All supply trains have been assembled and are ready to move out."

Gyousou looked over at her, a little taken aback.

"Supply trains are difficult to move, especially in winter, General," he felt obliged to point out. "Moving goods and weapons overland is-"

"Not anymore, your majesty," she corrected. "I used the Royal Seal to annex the use of all available skyways and ordered them to move the goods and troops double time. It was not a problem. The last of the troops in Sui Province and in southern Ki Province are being moved as we speak."

"And their supplies?"

"Personal gear has been strapped to the underside of the conveyance," Risai replied. "Food and medical supplies, as well as personnel in charge of such, has been placed in the conveyances behind the troops. A single day more and all of your forces will be assembled. The kuukoshi (air forces) are assembled with spare mounts and supplies."

"Very good, general," he said approvingly. "And the ships along the coast?"

"Making their way north sir, though the ice is still giving them some trouble, they will be able to make it into position. Shall I order the kuukoshi to land on decks and await orders?"

"Have them stand by for now," Gyousou said decisively. "Out of curiosity general, how is it that you knew that you would be able to move this many troops this quickly? It's unheard of, especially in winter."

Risai flashed a quick, fierce grin.

"Lady Yuka was quick to appreciate the civilian application for the skyways, getting the goods she needed sold to their ports and markets quickly while not being impeded overland by the untraversible winter terrain. Master Taiki saw the use of the skyways for humanitarian aid, sending needed food and medical supplies to outlying towns and villages that would ordinarily need them but not be able to receive then due to weather conditions."

Gyousou nodded, appreciating the charicteristic truths.

"I, however was quick to appreciate their strategic uses in readying the field of combat quickly," Risai said. "I have ordered several covert dry runs disguised as deploying emergency troops to handle youma problems and supply drops for humanitarian aid to test out the system's ability to handle quick and massive troop and supply movement preparatory to just such maneuvers, your majesty."

"Well done, thank you general, as you were."

"Sir!" Risai quickly bowed her exit and went back to handling the army.

Taiki poked his nose in and said

"Yuka wants to know if you want to meet with the king of Han privately before he leaves, now that he's not going to cause any trouble, or if you just want her to handle everything."

Gyousou gave it a moment's consideration.

"I will meet with him, ask her if she will attend."

"Yes Your Majesty," he said, disappearing back to the palace he shared with the girl.

_:After the masterful recovery she pulled off last night, and everything she's written down that I've read, I should probably stop thinking of her as a __**girl**__,:_ he thought with a small headshake as he pulled on the black imperial hanfuu.

He stepped out into the royal garden that separated his own Seiden Palace from Meiden Palace (though officially, both of them were actually Seiden palace, Meiden was more casually known as the place where Taiki slept) to find the consorts maids trickling out into the garden (and scanning the area for threats). Shortly afterward the Royal Consort stepped out.

_:Woah...:_ he thought, surprised and taken aback.

He'd seen her dressed for court and for receiving royal envoys, and her clothes had been lovely enough and tasteful enough to cover the occasion if a bit on the plain side. Her make-up and jewelry had been enough to pass without comment, but nothing that even a less-favored lady of the former king's retinue would have worn. Gyousou was caught literally tongue tied by how lovely she could make herself when she clearly chose to exert great effort.

The ensemble she had chosen was flawless in the coordination of its colors of pale blue, dark blue and silver and beautifully exotic but tasteful in its design. Her feet were encased in soft boots folded over at the tops with tooling in the leather and she wore a pale ice-blue full skirt that was pleated and embroidered up along one side with stylized climbing roses in the knotworks well known in the north of Tai . There was a matching shirt of pale blue that was cut close to her arms with embroidered cuffs that pointed down over the knuckle of her middle finger. The shirt and underskirt were covered by an over-dress cut to reveal both layers. The overcoat was divided down the middle and held in closed by a wide sash with knotwork embroidery in a stripe across the middle, and the bottom hem of the over-robe was covered in three inches of incredibly intricate knotworks in silver thread. The top was partly opened to display the shirt under it, and the sleeves were slashed at the top, then cut back at the elbows to hang down like two long furosode, encrusted with intricate knotwork embroidery. In front of the scoop neckline of the overrobe was an incredibly intricate necklace, clearly made with gems found in Tai. Intricate earrings to match dangled beside her ears, and bangles and two rings glinted on her hands. Her long black hair was braided and fashioned in an intricate pattern, with a set of jeweled combs and hairsticks with gem-beads hanging down from them, glinting in the morning sun. Her make-up was subtle, it almost seemed she wasn't wearing any, but there was a slight darkness to her eyes and lips. She bowed politely, her face its usual diplomatic mask.

"That is... you look... slightly different from your usual," he managed at last.

It had been a long time since he'd ever stammered in the presence of a woman. He had never seen such an unusual ruqun, the sleeves on the shenyi were strange, and the bottom hems were unusually shortened, more like a khuze and it divided down the middle instead of being wrapped left over right or even fastened down the side, the neck line too more resembled the horizontal neckline favored by the court in the days of Queen Lintao, but the undergarment was very different. The sleeves of the undershirt were cut close to the wrist and the pants were made with crisp folds that radiated outward. Very peculiar, but not unattractive.

"Thank-you, your majesty," Yuka replied politely, there was a certain sort of glitter in her eyes that he wasn't quite certain what to make of. He found out what it was a moment later.

"Hopefully, this will make do."

"Do?" he questioned.

"Yes, I must redeem my honor today," Yuka replied, looking strangely intent. Her teeth were gritted, as if she wanted revenge for something.

"Your admirer meant you no harm, Lady Yuka," he said, feeling a little sorry for the erstwhile suitor.

"That Go Ranjou dared to imply that he was more fashionable than me!" Yuka said in a very feminine outrage.

"Huh?" Gyousou said, completely caught off-guard.

"He called me plain and dull! And said that my clothes were fit for an old woman! I'll show him!"

Yuka turned around full circle, clearly intending that he should admire her.

"I had this dress made on my own orders a while ago. I've been saving it for a special occasion. I can't think of anything better than using it to shut him up. I mean, he probably thinks orange is the new pink or something! Prepare yourself Han-idiot, we'll see who's tastes are boring!"

_:Is this really happening_?: Gyousou wondered. _:He comes to court her, completely inappropriately, but instead winds up putting her in a snit over her clothes. Worse yet, she responds by dressing up nicely to put him in his place? What kind of crazy politics does this woman operate with? And that Han emperor, he's as crazy as she is!: _

Gyousou felt a headache coming on. He sighed as he escorted the crazed little fashionista to the private reception room in Seiden Palace, a place that probably hadn't been opened up in years. He was sure that Taiki didn't see much in the way of guests, besides the occassional visit from his friend Keiki, and Yuka would be too wary of cries of impropriety to meet with a strange man alone in a private place.

_:I have to admit that she can put herself together,:_ Gyousou thought as the walked side by side through his rooms.

Yuka had once written in her notes, which sometimes read almost more like a private journal, that she never once underestimated the power of appearances. She always looked her best because clothes were a sort of armor. It was hard enough to maintain her shaky authority, and oftentimes maintaining that rested on her ability to make her opponents underestimate her.

Gyousou politely seated his acting-consort and then himself in the inner courtyard garden then waited for the other emperor to show up. He wondered what in the world he was supposed to say to the man as an ice-breaker. "So, you dropped by to steal my wife" didn't seem like it would go over well. It was weird thinking of the girl in terms of a relationship with him, and he got the feeling that despite the fact that she did so much on behalf of "her husband" Yuka was just as uncomfortable with it as he was.

"Don't make such a scary face, you're going to make him think you intend to kill him," Yuka said, looking over at him from the corner of her eye. He wondered how it was that women always managed to look at things so obliquely that you could never be quite sure what it was they were looking at or how much they had seen.

"What scary face?" he asked, genuinely confused. "This is how I always look."

"You always look like you're going to pounce on something and eat it?" she questioned. "Smile!"

Gyousou looked back at her blankly. There was nothing funny to smile about.

Yuka sighed.

"Han-ou is never going to believe you want to make friends if you don't look a little friendlier."

"We are trading partners, not friends," The king replied. "And he attacked my pride last night. In fact, if I think about it, the resolution was good but still slightly insulting. He's decided that you're not good enough for him and rejected Tai's Royal Consort."

"So what if he dropped me like a hot rock?" Yuka replied. "All that matters is that we get those trade agreements I want... and that he acknowledges my fashion-superiority to him. That's important too."

"It's not important at all," he argued, seriously wondering about her priorities.

"Blasphemy and sacrilege!" Yuka said in mild offense. "That was _real_ silk I was wearing last night! It's expensive, and the color suited me, even if the cut was a little dowdy. He could at least have acknowledged my ability to accessorize; those jade beads were personally picked out and designed by me!"

"I think you're missing the point here," he said.

They were both spared from further useless argument over what was indeed the point of the meeting by the announcement of the entrance of Han-ou. Yuka and Gyousou both rose simultaneously and Yuka gave a polite bow while Gyousou, as the king of the country, remained in place. On seeing the man dressed in the black imperial hanfuu of the Royal Tai, Go Ranjou's eyes widened in dismay.

"Please have a seat," the Tai-ou invited gesturing to a chair nearby.

Despite his "pretty" appearance, the emperor of Han did look a little bit like a mouse that knows the cat is watching it and is hoping it might decide to find its meal elsewhere. To put him more at ease (hopefully) Gyousou signaled a servant to bring them something to drink.

A servant brought in wine and glasses for the Royal Han, quite possibly from his own stock, and another brought in tea on a service. Yuka looked a question at both of them as she reached for the pot and received a nod from Gyousou and a negation from Go. The wine was poured by its attendant. As Yuka poured the tea, the king of Han's eyes lit on her and took in every detail with lingering appreciation.

"It seems I was mistaken," he said, nodding at her clothes.

Yuka smiled, carefully hiding the smugness she was no doubt feeling about it.

"How is that my dear Royal Han?" she inquired politely.

"I had thought I was coming to rescue you from a life of toil in which you were forced to wear such terrible plain and unfashionable clothes that were far from elegant," he replied. "But it seems your king at least has some small ability to dress you well."

"I designed it myself," Yuka preened.

"You must be more firm in that case, your ladyship," Go Ranjou said, seriously, leaning forward. "I know he may complain, but you must ignore him."

"Ignore who?" she asked over her tea.

"Your husband, when he says he does not need to change the qun (outer wrap) he is wearing. It's at lest ten years out of date, and those colors! No, you must take him in hand on the matter of accessories."

"My husband is a warrior my dear Han," Yuka said with a bright, beaming political smile. "I am advised by him to pick my battles."

Go Ranjou laughed and Gyousou sensed all of the tension drain from the room. It was more than mere affront about his comments on her clothes that had prompted her to wear what was clearly one of the best ensembles she possessed, Yuka had to have been aware of Han-ou's love of fashion and acted to both break the ice and smooth the way to better relations.

They discussed the merits of parasols for a short while and then moved on to a brief debate over those who wore gloves in the summertime. Ranjou told her of a particularly lovely bolt of maroon satin he had come across, and they discussed what colors and patterns it should be embroidered with.

_:They sound more like debutantes or gossipy housewives rather than a head of state and an acting Consort,:_ Gyousou thought, doing his best to stay well out of the conversation. He disliked matters of fashion.

"My! And what is this?!" Go Ranjou said, suddenly seizing her hand and bringing it up into the light.

Gyousou attention was brought to a piece of jewelry that he'd only partly noticed before. A panja, it went over the back of the hand, with a ring for the middle finger to slip through that widened in a triangular shape over the back of the hand and gently hooked around the meat of the thumb and the wrist. The panja was a knotwork-peice that supported a single large cabochon jewel that was multifaceted on the underside. This jewel was like nothing he had ever seen before, and as the king of a nation known for its gems, he had seen a lot of them. This jewel was not one color, but somehow managed to be several different colors depending on how the light hit it. One minute it looked blue, then the shadow would turn to green, then purple, the colors chasing themselves back and forth inside the jewel in such a way that it was obviously not the result of painting the underside of a clear gem.

"It's so beautiful!" the king of Han exclaimed in delight. "I have never seen its like anywhere before, ever!"

"Oh? This old thing?" Yuka said with a feigned careless flick of her wrists. "Well it's not surprising really. I had it grown especially for me. The technique took a little trial and error, but a lady must have her hobbies you know. They're really difficult to produce. In fact I've only made a few of them, I've been so busy with other things that it just didn't seem worth the time and bother."

"How can you say that?" the king of Han said, still admiring her jewel. "Beauty, especially rare beauty is always worth cultivating. And there are only a few others, you say?"

"No point in having a rare gem if everyone knows how to make them," Yuka nodded.

"It's exquisite," Go Ranjou said. "I can already see my beautiful kirin wearing this gem. The shade even matches her eyes, and with matching silk..."

Yuka exchanged a quick, amused glance with Gyousou and he comprehended the entirety of it. She'd planned it from the very start. She'd had it waiting on hand and was clearly looking for a way to make a big entrance onto the market for the gem, and one couldn't get a much bigger entrance than the fashion crazed, eccentric king of Han. Yuka's dark eyes glittered in carefully concealed anticipation.

"It seems you've hit on my weakness Your Majesty," Yuka said. "You see, I have a soft spot for kirin, as I'm sure you've heard. I could hardly deny your sweet Hanrin the delight of having something new and pretty. I will send a set of them as a gesture of goodwill. You may have to wait a few weeks however, they are very difficult to grow, which is why until now these have been the only ones."

_:One would think that a king would be able to see through such an obvious ploy, but he's eating it up whole cloth!:_ Gyousou thought incredulously.

Then again, he had never seen such a jewel either to be honest, so it could be that she was speaking the truth. Gyousou only half-believed that however, Yuka was taking entirely too much care to stress their rarity. While they might be rare, he was betting that it was more along the lines of her controlling the knowledge to produce the things, which she planned to conceal in the interests of inflating the prices.

_:But that's the secret to selling luxury goods,:_ Gyousou thought as he sat back and left her to it. _:A scarce commodity, even one that is only __**perceived**__ to be scarce, is always far more expensive than something just as lovely but far more common.:_

He had seen it so with gem springs certainly. Agate springs could grow their particular gem in wide varieties of the clearest, most beautifully colored stones, but those stones were not worth as much as the ones that emerged from emerald springs or ruby springs simply because the latter were far more rare in number and took longer to grow. It was a fact that the economy of Tai relied upon. One could not eat rocks, so in order to bring the money in trade that the kingdom needed to augment expenses, it relied upon other kingdoms being stable enough to spend their wealth on perceived value.

"Of course," Yuka went on smoothly. "While I can offer you a few of these from my own private collection, you will have to speak with my dear husband if you wish to discuss opening a trade."

_:And here I was beginning to wonder why I'd even bothered to show up_,: Gyousou thought with some small irony_. :The girl has become sadly accustomed to handling matters on her own. I'm almost surprised she handed it over to me and didn't try to open negotiations.:_

"I have a small scroll with an estimate of their value per carat drawn up, but since relations between Han and Tai are so strong, its goes without saying that the price is somewhat negotiable. If I have your leave, gentlemen?"

Yuka rose and bowed gracefully. Gyousou nodded, allowing her dismissal. The direct look she gave him communicated silently a demand; 'don't screw this up' Gyousou gave her a sharp look in reply, 'I don't need you to tell me that.'

"Ah Tai-ou, I am envious of you," Han-ou said as soon as Yuka has departed with elegant grace. "You are a very lucky man to have such a treasure adorning your palace."

"Thank-you," he said simply, trying not to feel awkward about accepting compliments from a man who admired a wife that Gyousou possessed in name only. "She's something else, that is for certain."

"A pity that she is a kaikyaku and has brought such misfortune to your land, but I can't blame you for keeping her despite her unfortunate curse. Are you certain that is wise however?"

"The Royal Consort has never done anything with the intention of harming this land," Gyousou replied with careful honesty. "If unfortunate events befall around her, that's hardly her fault and I would not punish her for it."

"You are a generous man too, I see. I suppose that is why she chose to stay with you," Go Ranjou said a bit wistfully. "In that case, we should turn matters to business."

The King of Han and the Royal Tai spent the next hour ironing out a renewal of the usual trade agreements, plus a tentative agreement on those new gems that Yuka had dangled before him. The price she was asking was so shocking that Gyousou had nearly choked on his tea when he saw them, but Han-ou seemed to take it in stride and haggled only a little, and at that mostly over the amount that he might be able to procure.

_:He's going to bankrupt his kingdom!:_ Gyousou thought, aghast and a little pityingly for the other land.

Tai was cash-poor right then and Risai had reported that many of the southern gem-springs were still slightly depleted, or at least not growing to optimum efficiency, but Han hadn't even blinked at the outrageous price Yuka had named for her opening bid. All he'd said was, "my, that's a bit high" but Han's counter-offer had been ridiculously high as well, not even cutting off a full fifteen percent!

_:Still I suppose I can't complain about it,:_ Gyousou thought.

He was going to need the extra money to fund the end of Tai's civil wars after all. Even Yuka had grasped that fielding an army didn't come cheaply, and fielding one during the winter-time could be even more difficult. He was pleased to be able to defray the expenses.

:But since the Emperor of Han is here right now, it would be sensible of me to kill to birds with one stone,: Gyousou thought to himself.

On closer investigation into matters with the northern provinces he had a few strategies that were coming together but would have to wait for the next few days to pass first before he could commit definitely to a particular plan of action.

"Han-ou," he said as the business side of negotiations closed and it was simply himself and the other emperor sipping their respective drinks. "My Kouri has mentioned on several occasions how very much he enjoyed his visit to your kingdom. As you know it has been impossible for him to make another such journey so far away from Tai for the last few decades, I hope it would not be too much an imposition on your gracious hospitality if I requested your leave to offer him another such visit as a reward for all of his hard work."

"I don't suppose he would come accompanied by your lovely Royal Consort," Han-ou said with bold cheer, flicking his fan open and tittering a bit behind it.

"I fear that the Royal Consort will be needed in Tai for some small time yet," Gyousou said drolly.

"Ah, a pity," he said not bothering to hide his disappointment.

:One would have thought that, as one of kings involved with my situation, he would be aware of the nature of the Royal Consorts marriage to me,: Gyousou thought.

Perhaps the Royal Hou _was_ aware of the fact that theirs was not a love match, and that was why he was pursuing Tai's Royal Consort without any regard to the legalities of the situation. On one hand it was quite possible that Han-ou was ignorant of how things really stood between Gyousou and his surprise consort; the details of any particular kingdom's family situation was not widely publicized when a ruler took the throne, In general all that any given kingdom's rulers knew about any other when a new ruler was enthroned was that a ruler _had_ been enthroned. It wasn't like the hakuchi gave out news about another kingdom's personal details when it sang out the news that a ruler had been chosen. "Enthroned!" was about the extent of its message with regards to the ascension of another kingdom's ruler, so it wasn't as though there would have been extensive knowledge given about his proxy marriage to Lady Yuka. On the other hand, Hou-ou was widely rumored to be quite willful and unaccommodating when the mood struck; his pickiness in matters of aesthetics was legendary… his pursuit of Lady Yuka might simply be another sign of his willfulness.

"Naturally, Hou would be pleased to host Tai's Kirin," he said graciously. "His sense of aesthetic in matters of art has always highly recommended him in my eyes, and I believe we would have quite the grand time together."

"My thanks," Gyousou said.

The sound of laughter and the gentle strum of instruments tickled at the edge of their hearing, coming from the direction of Meiden Palace and the Royal Han perked up in interest.

"Perhaps we should indulge in a stroll about your gardens," he suggested, rising and heading over to the door. "I'm sure the fresh air will do wonders."

Gyousou barely refrained from shaking his head in amusement at the man's obvious ploy and also rose to accompany him. Not that Lady Yuka, surrounded by a dozen battle-train handmaids, couldn't hold off one man if he chose to make a move on her but it would be best to keep an eye on things in case Han-ou got any more adventurous. She was too diplomatic for her own good.

* * *

**Huge shout-out to Kshadeslady who reminded me that I really should stop dithering over minor things and just post the next chapter already! And to my other reveiwers the ever wonderful war90 and nichiwanna (always nice to see a newcomer!). So sorry for the delay in posting this but sometimes my perfectionist nature just takes over.  
**


	15. Tempus Saltandi

Tempus Saltandi (A Time to Dance)

The King of Han signed the new agreements on the spot and rose, walking out into the courtyard garden that separated Seiden and Meiden palace. The garden was unusually full, the Taiho and the Royal Consort were both taking advantage of the rare break in their usually hectic schedules, and it seemed that a winter garden party had been called for to celebrate the lapse in routine. Having a pretty good idea of what that Go Ranjou was really after, Gyousou followed him to keep matters from getting out of hand.

Taiki sat by the edge of the garden pond, his slight frame wrapped in blankets to ward away the chill of the Tai winter that penetrated even to the Imperial Palace. A decorative stone fire pit blazed cheerfully nearby to warm the celebrants. The sounds of shrieks and laughter and music sailed over the walls and the sight that greeted them as they maneuvered past the gate was one of impromptu gaiety. Yuka and her bevy of handmaids (or were they bodyguards? Gyousou was never quite sure…) were out in full force, filling the garden. The younger handmaidens were running around laughing and shrieking like children as they played a game that was part tag and part snowball fight, while the older battle-maid variety of handmaid settled near the fire pits alongside their mistress, instruments in hand. Yuka was playing some strange stringed instrument of a make that Gyousou had never seen before. It was flatter and smaller than a guitern, with less strings, but was played with a bow like an erhu and instead of being held upright on the lap was perched precariously on a shoulder.

"Ah, Yuka!" Taiki said cheerfully. "Is that the new one that was given to you by Nakajima-san?"

"Yes," Yuka said with a genuine smile, Gyousou could tell it was genuine because it had dimples. He noticed that they didn't appear as often as her politic smiles, the ones that were part of her mask, and then, he'd only ever seen them around Taiki.

"Are you going to play something for me?" Taiki asked next. "You don't play as often as you used to."

"It's hard to feel like playing with so much going on," Yuka replied honestly. "And I rarely have spare time."

"Play something happy!" Taiki urged her.

"As my Taiho commands," Yuka said with an ironic bow in his direction.

She warmed the instrument up then launched into a fast-paced piece that could have pulled right out of any inn or tavern in the north of Tai. She fumbled the fingerings a bit at first, clearly not warmed up or having practiced in a while, but after a moment or two her hands remembered what they were supposed to do. Taiki and a few of the maids joined hands to dance there in the garden, ostensibly for the purpose of warming their bodies, laughing and leaping about on the pattern of the energetic Running Dance.

: _I Haven't heard that song in some years,:_ Gyousou thought appreciatively as he, too settled in to listen as well as keep an eye on the king of Han who had walked right over to settle himself at Yuka's feet, ostensibly to listen to the music better, but the lengthy look and eyebrow raise that Yuka shot Gyousou said it was lost on neither of them the way Han-ou leaned up against her legs, all but putting his head in her lap. Gyousou shook his head a little at this, he wasn't sure whether to consider the emperor brave or foolish.

_:After all, it's one thing to flirt in letters from miles away, but quite another to press inappropriate displays of affection on someone when visiting them in their own country,:_ Gyousou thought_. :I have heard he's a good king despite his eccentricities, he has to be aware that he is placing the poor girl in an awkward position. Even so, his regard for her seems genuine.:_

The visiting emperor seemed quite enchanted by Yuka as she began to play a lovely slow piece that Gyousou had never heard before. Yuka, for her part, ignored him utterly, choosing instead to concentrate on her playing, and pretend that her erstwhile foot-warmer didn't exist. It wasn't open distain, but it was clear she wasn't pleased with him either.

The next song she launched into was an instrumental rendition of "Fair Wife of the Ocean" a traditional ballad about a young fisherman who stole the wife of the king of the ocean and brought calamity to his kingdom by inviting the youma in. The next one she played was another folksong, this one about two male friends, one of which betrayed his friend by stealing away the woman he loved, causing the two of them to fight to the death and the woman to die of a broken heart.

_:I'm sensing a theme here,:_ Gyousou thought ironically.

The king of Han either did not know the songs and was thus unable to appreciate Yuka's subtle hint, or he simply didn't care, for he sat there making calf-eyes at her while she started on another song. After that one failed to produce any noticeable change in his inconvenient adoration, Yuka looked over at Taiki exasperatedly as if to say "can't this man take a hint?" The two of them had been partners for so long that they had an entire silent language, probably created in the royal court where there was a great deal that could not be said out loud. Gyousou suppressed a small pang of jealousy that his kirin would be able to be so familiar and comfortable around someone who was not him.

Yuka played another song, a slower piece, again along the same theme as the two before it and this time Taiki looked over to his king to shoo the visiting royal off. Reading the look as a request, Gyousou got up from the place he'd settled in (with the intention of going over some more paperwork) and walked over to sit down right next to Tai's Royal Consort, who made room for him. The girl looked at him out of the corner of one eye and turned back to concentrating on her playing. Han-ou audaciously squeezed in closer against her legs, actually resting a chin on one knee and smiling charmingly up at her.

_:Is he trying to pick a fight?:_ Gyousou wondered to himself, a little irritated now at what could be rightly perceived as a challenge to him.

He saw that Yuka was wondering the same thing, when she exchanged another look with Taiki, who smiled with a wince clearly saying 'well really, what can be done?' Yuka responded with a flat look, as though she had a few ideas and none of them were very nice.

Gyousou was perfectly well aware that if left to her own devices, Lady Yuka would go on being polite and diplomatic in the face of the foreign king's _outrageous_ behavior purely out of interest in those newly signed trade agreements. Of course, her diplomacy would only encourage that Go Ranjou to ignore all propriety and continue acting in his bold fashion. Gyousou understood that subtlety and polity were the hallmarks of her quasi-reign with Taiki, but the Peace-King of Tai, ex-general that he was, was more inclined to handle matters in a direct fashion.

_:While her subtlety and restraint are admirable,:_ Gyousou thought with an internal headshake. _:In this matter, perhaps the direct approach is best.:_

He caught the eye of the lead instrumentalist and sent a subtle hand sign that they should change songs. The ladies all looked positively delighted, exchanging conspirational looks and smiles with one another. Gyousou rose to his feet and gently set a restraining hand on the Royal Consort's playing arm. She gave him a quizzical look as she paused in her playing and he motioned that she should set aside her instrument. Looking mystified as to his intent, she nonetheless acquiesced when he gently pulled her to her feet. The playing handmaidens changed their tune to a slow, intimate pavane. Gyousou pretended to ignore the imperial nuisance crouched at his consort's feet as he pulled her into the center of the gardens while the rest of the handmaids cleared out of the way so they could dance.

For the first time since he had known her, Gyousou got the opportunity to see the Royal Consort caught off-guard when he pulled her in close for the opening form. She stiffened, instinctively pulling away when he gently put a hand at the small of her back and Gyousou was forced to steady her by holding her in position firmly. The look she flashed him before she managed to school her features again looked like a cross between surprise and shy embarrassment. It had been a vary long time indeed since he had last danced with a woman, not since his wife had passed away in fact, but by the uncomfortable flush on his partners face he wondered if this might be the very first time she had _ever_ been asked to dance.

_:It's possible,:_ he realized with chagrin a moment later. _:Kouri has said that they were both still of an age to be in schooling yet when she took up the mantle of Royal Consort. If she had not had any such experience before she stood next to Tai's throne, then she would not have had any such opportunities afterward, I would wager, for fear of rumors about favoritism at best and adultery at worst.:_

Depending on the personality of the woman in question, never having had the opportunity to be asked to dance could be seen as a big deal.

She went through the motions smoothly and with a consummate grace that was probably the fruit of decades of training, though he noticed that she tried to keep her gaze fixed downward. That wouldn't do. There would be no convincing Go Ranjou to cease his pursuit of her if the foreign king was not convinced that there was nothing here in Tai for him to pursue. To that end she needed to appear to have eyes only for him. Gyousou gently tilted her face up to meet his. The steps of the dance had them spiraling around each other, like two moths circling a flame, twirling out and away only to be brought back in close again as though pulled by their own gravity to one another. Their bodies were drawn close to one another but the only part of them that met in contact were their hands pressed flat to one another. When they danced in close he held her gaze, though by the subtle tension on her hands it was clear she would have looked away if she could have. Even under the pale make-up of the royal consort she looked a bit flushed, and clearly discomfited.

_:Poor thing,:_ he thought, this time in private amusement. _:Clearly, she is not accustomed to dancing with strange men.:_

The song finished and she made her ending curtsy, and would just as obviously liked to bolt for the safety of his kirin, who was probably her only dance partner, but Gyousou held her firmly to his side. Han-ou had really stayed as long as he was welcome to for now. Gyousou had a kingdom to settle and was more eager to be about it rather than entertain foreign royalty (no matter how welcome their trade agreements), it was time to shuffle the man off so that Gyousou could be about his business. Otherwise the man would surely offer to "protect" his Royal Consort by offering to take her back to Han with him, and Gyousou had plans for Her Royal Usefulness right where she was.

"Han-ou," Gyousou said, keeping a little space between the beleaguered Royal Consort and the visiting Royal Han by tucking her arm in his as a display of solidarity. "It is getting late and my kirin, my Consort and myself have many matters to attend to here in Tai. Perhaps you might like us to see you to your kijyuu?"

Perhaps it was not as subtle as he was sure his Consort would come up with, but he had the feeling that subtlety and polity would all be ignored by that insouciant ruler if given half a chance.

"Ah, of course," the foreign king said not taking his eyes off Lady Yuka. "It has been a pleasure to visit, you must come see Han some day soon. It's a great deal warmer."

Yuka kept her eyes down, apparently wary of giving him even the least sign of encouragement. Her cheeks were very slightly pink, so Gyousou considerately caught her elbow in his hand to keep her right by his side and out of Han's way.

"Your offer is all generosity," Yuka reassured him.

Gyousou noted that she didn't say anything about going for a visit. The two of them (and Yuka's usual entourage of women) plus Taiki, walked with the Emperor down to the south gate where he would meet up with the rest of his entourage, who was already packed and ready to leave. They made the usual polite farewells and well wishes for a safe journey.

"I hope your kirin likes the present," Yuka said, warily not coming very close to the foreign king's kijyuu, possibly half-worried he might actually try to pull her up onto it and kidnap her. "Send dear Hanrin my regards."

"I will, and please remember that my invitation to visit stands open at any time," he said with a smile at her.

"Safe journey to you, Han-ou," Gyousou said, with grave courtesy.

"Hmm. You'd think a man like yourself would be boring," Han-ou replied with unusual frankness for him. "There's certainly _something_ usual about you. I think you may be a man who will live up to his own legend, and that is not something to be said lightly."

"I cannot help what legends others might make of me. A tiger never sees its own stripes, or so they say," Gyousou said, setting aside his usual reserve to show the teeth and claws of the tiger in his smile.

"So they say," Han-ou replied, acknowledging the unspoken challenge between them. "Time will tell. Best of luck to you king of Tai, may you reign a thousand years."

"And to you, King of Han."

The kijyuu flew up into the air and off into the distance.

"Don't let the door hit you where the Tentei split you!" Yuka muttered vehemently now that there was no danger of him overhearing.

"Now now Yuka, it's been a long time since we've had guests, I'd thought you'd be happy about it," Taiki said. "His behavior wasn't any worse than Komatsu-san's is normally."

"There's a difference between Han-ou's behavior and that womanizing Ever-letch's behavior," Yuka maintained as the three of them made their way back to the imperial apartments via a secret route so that Gyousou would not be seen. "Naotaka Komatsu never means anything of what he says. This guy would have carried me off like Helen of Troy if he could have gotten away with it."

"Helen of Troy?" Gyousou inquired.

Taiki and Yuka explained the basic story of the literary classic, though Gyousou had a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that one kingdom could just decide to pack up their troops and go take over another kingdom just because of a perceived slight. It was against the Laws of Heaven in his world.

"Well that why there's never any peace where we come from," Taiki said sadly. "Someone is always fighting someone else over something."

"I hate hearing you kings whine so much sometimes," Yuka said with one of her expressive eye-rolls. "You all have no idea how good you've all got it! No invading forces, no international posturing and sabre-rattling to keep more powerful nations off your back, no terrorists, no fanatical religious wars that go on for hundreds and hundreds of years and it impossible to declare a winner..."

"Next time I get the urge to complain, I suppose I shall keep that in mind," Gyousou said gamely.

"You don't look like you complain much," Yuka replied. "You look like one of those manly-stoic types."

"That's a compliment?" he said, uncertainly.

"Well anyway, I'll leave you to your work," Yuka said, departing for her own quarters, leaving him with Taiki.

"Gyousou-sama," Taiki said. "Will you really have to leave so soon? You just woke up."

"I'm afraid so, Kouri," he said gently. "This divide will not settle itself quickly, even when I fire the four leaders of the insurrectionists. I will have to lead the fight against it in order to firmly reunite Tai again."

Gyousou left unsaid the worry he felt in his heart, that if he did not hurry, Kouri would become sick and Gyousou would not be swift enough to prevent it.

"I know I can leave the court safely in your hands," he encouraged the kirin.

"But..." Kouri protested. "What if someone tries to attack me or Yuka again?"

It was a valid concern. This whole mess had started because Gyousou had been forced to leave his kirin behind. He had not been unprotected at that time for Risai had been there, but it had not been enough.

"I will have to act quickly, and return before they get a chance," Gyousou said, with a soft smile as he reached out to ruffle his kirins hair. "Until that point, you and the girl will have to carry on as you have done."

"That Han-ou certainly seemed to like her a lot," Taiki remarked happily. "I think when she leaves to find her own husband, she should talk to him first."

"Huh? _Leaves_?" Gyousou asked, startled. "When is she leaving?"

He hadn't heard anything about this!

"As soon as she knows Tai and I are going to be okay," Taiki replied, as though it were a matter of course. "She's really old already, and tired of dealing with the court. I think she plans on having a vacation then running around to look for a husband."

"She already has one," he pointed out, a little miffed.

"Gyousou-sama, you were a proxy marriage," Taiki replied, as though it should be obvious. "She hadn't even said a single word to you before she agreed to be your wife, so that's not a _real_ marriage. You two aren't in love. Yuka's put everything on hold to help me out, now's her chance to have her own life and be happy."

"Hnh... I guess I can't deny that one," Gyousou replied. "And what about you, Kouri? Have you missed out on life?"

"The only life I need or want is right here with you, Gyousou-sama," the kirin replied.


	16. De Minimis Non Curat Praetor

De Minimis Non Curat Praetor (The commander does not bother with the smallest things)

General Risai quickly perused the encoded document written in the strange characters from the other world that Yuka had taught to her little bevy of spies. It was so very unlike the writing style she was accustomed to, which relied on complex characters and many of the same sounds could have a thousand different meanings based on which character was used. The code was based on sound rather than a depiction of the object or idea, each character represented one of in some cases several sounds and they were strung together to make out what the word would be if pronounced aloud. It was also easy to switch out the different characters for each other, so that in the unlikely event a turncoat would get hold of a missive, the resulting message would make no sense unless they had the key. It had been a marvelously effective code for many years now.

_:A useful thing that, and so easy to cipher,:_ Risai thought.

The latest intelligence read that the armies that had been posted long the pass-route to Cheinlen had assembled and moved further north. At last report they had just started to move west, and were presumed to have been ordered back to shore up fortifications at the gate-pass to Tungjou.

_:That place already has a full blue unit, and the yellow unit that just put on the march will bring its strength up to a full white unit of ten thousand soldiers. Sheesh, where is their commander going to put them all, the barracks in that fortress are only designed for a single blue unit. They're going to be packed in like sardines since trying to make a winter camp is about out of the question with the way the weather is right now._:

She had just informed his majesty of the movements and he had adjusted the strategy for that area of the campaign. With his usual expertise he had turned a disadvantage (superior numbers and a fortress) to an advantage. 'The Fortress and pass might give them the high ground,' he'd said. 'But if we strike quickly, we will catch them at a moment when the soldiers have not yet settled in and will be disorganized and easier to defeat.' Having all of those fighters crammed into one small space would be like a kit of foxes attacking a chicken coop from all sides, the soldiers would be lax and undisciplined thus less able to mount an effective defense with everyone stumbling all over everyone else.

The army was all but assembled now, all that was left was for the king to appear in the full court that evening and set things in motion. Risai couldn't wait. The troops under her were all but dancing in place in their eagerness to be off. They had been waiting to be ordered to the campaign for _years_ and it had been a source of general frustration to them to never be given the order to march. They and everyone knew that the provincial governors were not acting in the best interests of Tai, and the last thing any man or woman of Tai had a taste for was a long, drawn-out political feud... blood feuds were more the taste in this northern land.

_:On one hand, I can see the good points. The superior infrastructure here in the south and the better job-markets have had the effect of clearing the north of most of the civilian population. Both Taiki and Yuka were concerned that the people should not suffer from war, but really, this nonsense has gone on for long enough!:_

Risai would have been pleased if even Yuka had decided the head the army rather than engage in a protracted diplomatic running-dance.

_:But maybe that's just the Tai in me talking.:_

It was well known that the people of Tai enjoyed a good fight almost as much as they enjoyed a good ale or a good meal. Soldiering wasn't just a profession but more like a natural, national calling.

_:I will at least hand her some points for good sense, the guild of hunter-warriors had some effect in channeling the worst of the brawler's energies as well as taking down the youma population.:_

Though of course, they had their downside as well. The city guard was often left to clean up the messes that members of that lot often got into on a night of prolonged drinking and trouble-making.

_:She's an astute politician, and she has managed things by manipulating the economy and gem-prices on the international market that I would have said were quite impossible... but she's difficult to really __**like**__,:_ Risai thought to herself.

The Royal Consort was cunning, and manipulative. She never used her abilities in a detrimental fashion, Risai had never seen her abuse her powers, not once. She could have chosen to live in a great deal of luxury, but she always believed that the palace budget was better spent on boosting Tai's economy. Even her wardrobe was quite frugal, she re-dyed and reused fabrics rather than buy new pieces, and she didn't have extravagant jewelry or decorations. Risai had seen for herself how hard she worked to make things better, but all the same Risai couldn't bring herself to like Yuka for it.

_:Part of it may be a soldier's dislike for politicians,:_ Risai admitted.

No matter how well-intentioned, Yuka was still cunning and manipulative, so it was hard to trust her, even _with_ the evidence of all Risai had seen the girl put herself through to save Taiki's life. Part of her still had this nagging, lingering doubt, the thought that she might have taken up the proxy-marriage as a way to take control of the throne. She might actually be working with Asen to keep Tai destabilized and that was why she had never ordered the troops assembled and marched into the north to take it herself. As much as Risai understood Consort Yuka's reasons for not engaging the superior armed forces in the north to concentrate instead on stabilizing the economy, the soldier in her insisted that the girl should have taken the direct approach, should have marched in and reunified the lands and put an end to matters for good.

_:Her constant dithering seems cowardly!:_ Risai thought to herself.

She knew the girl wasn't dithering, that she even sort of had a plan in fact, but it felt like her refusal to go on the offensive was the mark of a weak coward who was too afraid to confront the problems directly.

_:I know that I will not be the only one relieved that the proper king is back on the throne. Finally! We can have done with this instead of putting up with her useless politicking.:_

She had known that Gyousou Saku would do what was right and necessary. He would lead the armies successfully and at last bring an end to all of this stupid sabre-rattling. For the first time in many decades, Risai could at last see an end to the extended wait, and a new hope for the future. However, now that she was free to contemplate that future, a strange thought occurred to her.

_:I wonder what his majesty will __**do**__ with the Royal Consort,:_ Risai wondered.

After all, it hadn't just been a marriage of convenience, but one made out of necessity and arranged by his kirin completely without Gyousou's permission. The Royal Tai had awoken from his sleep to find himself with a surprise consort. A woman who had interceded, unlooked for and unasked by him, a stranger (and a kaikyaku from another world no less), who had been using his authority and his name to do what she wished done with Tai.

_:Granted, I do not believe that Tai would have survived if she had not done as she did, but __**still**__...:_

If she had not intervened,Tai would, in fact, still be at the non-existent mercy of General Asen, who had apparently been doing his very utmost to completely ruin the kingdom and keep it ruined. It was hard to feel grateful for all that she knew the girl had done when Risai had to put up with the constant nagging frustration of being held back by her. The general had brought up many, many _many_ times (to the point where they were surely both sick of it) that Yuka should do to the northern shuukou as she had done to the southern provinces with the armies of En and Kei, that was, to assemble Tai's troops who would come to the royal banner and march on the north.

_:She's very intelligent, I still don't really see why she wouldn't take up arms. It's not like she's never been in a battle before! She is not incapable of it, and I would have been there to advise her strategy. She could have gathered the loyal soldiers in the five provinces that answered to her!:_

It seemed like she always was insulting Risai's abilities by not letting her take on the armies of even just one province... preferably Jou, her home-province.

_:That girl is guided too much by our merciful kirin,:_ Risai thought.

The girl wasn't spineless. When it came time to fight, Yuka never hesitated to make a kill-strike. It was a very, very closely kept secret that Yuka possessed prowess as a fighter. It was kept a secret because much of her character depended on deceiving her enemies into underestimating her.

_:Ever since the beginning, since she sent Asen into imprisonment in exile instead of executing him outright, that girl has shown herself to be too lenient, too unwilling to engage an enemy and defeat him properly. The shuukou would never have taken her so lightly if she had just taken even one of them on!:_

"You are frowning, general Risai," Gyousou remarked, entering the empty war-room where the General pored over the large map and sand-table set up for thier war strategy.

Risai conscientiously smoothed her face.

"It is no longer a concern, your majesty," she replied. "It is good you have returned. The army is assembled as you have commanded and is ready to move. We can march directly after the council meeting, this very night."

Gyousou chuckled, and looked over at her, not unkindly.

"It has been a long time in coming, it seems."

"Yes!" the general agreed with heartfelt emphasis.

Gyousou regarded her with a long, patient look and seemed like he might have said something but shook his head and clearly decided to broach a different subject

"Our future opponents are economically weakened, and will be weakened further by their incipient loss of leadership, though I doubt very much they will remain so," he said. "However their martial strength is still superior to the numbers we can field by nearly three to one. Added to this, they have the advantage of terrain, and... it is often said that engaging in combat in the north during the winter time is a stupid way to kill off an army."

"I know you will find a way to win this, your majesty," Risai said, conveying her absolute faith in him.

He sighed, looking unusually dubious for him.

"The more I come to see and grasp the situation, the more I come to only be able to hope that you are right."

"Your majesty, you are without doubt the greatest military commander our kingdom has ever produced," Risai protested to his crazy-talk. "If ever there were ever one who would triumph against these odds, it is you."

"General, I hope you do not think me cowardly to say this, but this is a war I am hoping we can win without fighting," Gyousou said.

Risai looked at him in surprise, taken aback. She knew that the enemies numbers were greater than their own, but she never once doubted her soldiers abilities or their eagerness to finally be undertaking their real duties to Tai. She certainly had not expected to hear such words from the mouth of her king, the famous general whose single defeat on record had been more of a victory than a defeat.

"I have read over some of the intelligence reports from the north, the one's concerning why the armies of the four provinces will not fall in line under the Royal Banner."

"Oh. _That_."

Someone, Risai suspected the actual Minister of Summer, if not the Province shuukou themselves, had leaked that the Royal Palace was being administered, not by the rightful king of Tai, but by a mere Royal Consort. Yuka had been still quite young at the time and had not gained her current level of political acumen, so neither she nor Taiki had thought to stop the tale from spreading. In the north the rumor that their kingdom would fall into the hands of not just a mere Royal Consort but a woman (and there had been outright riots when it was discovered the woman was a kaikyaku from the other world) had caused the already tenuous rift to shift into a full break in the kingdom.

In truth, Risai often felt a bit sorry for the young Consort. Up north, her name was spat on and dragged through the mud. She was accused and assumed of taking all sorts of lovers, some of them even hanjuu, while her husband was unable to prevent it. "Whore" was actually one of the _nicer_ terms they used to refer to her. Risai had never once seen a single shred of evidence to support that belief (and if anyone would know, it was the woman in charge of the Consort Bodyguards). By report she had never even once looked too long at a man, and comported herself in all ways like a properly married woman.

_:Though I have come to strongly suspect that the Royal Consort is in fact... untouched.:_

It seemed like a very, very strange thing to go for so many decades without satisfying the appetite. Risai had had many lovers over the years, since the military life tended to treat sex on the same level of eating or sleeping, an urge that came and went and should be fed when time called for it and not bothered with otherwise.

"They aren't true, your majesty," Risai hastened to reassure him.

It would not do if her king was made a laughingstock by implication that he was a cuckhold.

"Not even her bitterest enemies can accuse her truly," she added. "And they've made every attempt to try it."

There had been one shocking incidence where one fellow actually tried to manufact the evidence of an affair that he could not come by naturally. Yuka had used some sort of strange otherworld detecting techniques involving traces left behind by fingertips and cloth analysis to prove the allegations utterly false.

"I would not have assumed so," Gyousou replied with dignity. "However, having the Royal Consort teamed up with a kirin to run the country seems to have become an enormous bone of contention. I hope I do not sound hopelessly naive when I say that I hope that when the soldiers in the north see the throne properly restored they decide to simply fall peacefully back under my banner once again."

"You think they're going to just raise their arms and surrender?" she said in surprise.

"I can hope," Gyousou said dubiously. "Taiki has urged me to at least give them the chance."

"Will that not interfere with your plans to catch the armies by surprise?"

"Your intelligence reports suggest that it is already too late for that," Gyousou replied. "It was a fragile hope to begin with, and was never really a serious part of my strategy from the start. Neither is this, by the way, but every battle we do not have to engage in leaves us with better resources for the ones we must fight."

"And while you are away fighting, your majesty?" Risai questioned. "Will you leave the court as it was? Will having _that girl_ in place, manipulating everything, not be seen as essentially the same thing?!"

Gyousou looked back at Risai calmly, a single eyebrow raised. She had been shouting there at the end, her true feelings having gotten the better of her.

"I apologize for raising my voice in your presence, my king," Risai said , bowing deeply in apology.

"You do not like her?"

"I am never fully certain I can trust her, your majesty," Risai said with reluctant honesty. "She has given every appearance of being trustworthy, but I have seen her operate and I know that she is sly and cunning. She relies a great deal on deception. Part of me always wonders if she is deceiving me. After all, I thought that Asen was an admirable, upstanding general of Tai and I was pleased to call him a confederate, but then..."

She gestured vaguely to the map.

"It makes me uneasy that she spared his life," Risai added. "I know that Taiki asked her to do it, and that she has to lead in conjunction with him, never able to override his authority as Taiho and it has sometimes been a major setback. Taiki will always plead for mercy... I know all of this, but..."

"You think that she should have requested that you to have him quietly assassinated," Gyousou said shrewdly.

"I would have done it, and gladly!" Risai replied hotly. "I can't imagine a reason why she would not, except maybe she was young at the time, too softhearted, or that she lacked conviction. She refused to head north, and she refused to remove him from the problem. She consistently refuses my advice on military affairs whenever Taiki asks for greater mercy. How can I not help suspecting her when she spends so much time avoiding just taking care of the matter directly?"

"Spoken like a true citizen of Tai," Gyousou said with warm approval. "You and I will never take an indirect route, when a direct one is available. Diplomacy, it is agreed, has its place, and generally that place is right behind a good fight to settle the matter. It is a given then that someone who spends so much time trying to make omlettes without cracking open the eggs would seem suspicious. But, she's a kaikyaku, and I understand that the kingdom she hails from relies entirely upon trade rather than military strength to maintain itself. Given the complexity of the situation and the limited, divided powers of the co-leadership, I think she may have been what the situation required."

"And when the situation requires her no longer," Risai pressed boldly. "Will you remove her?"

"Taiki has given me to understand that it will not be a question," Gyousou replied shortly. "The girl has her own plans to move on when she is no longer necessary to protect Tai and its kirin."

Risai was taken aback, the wind truly taken out of her sails. All of her suspicions seemed so pointless now, since they relied on the girl being grasping and devious enough to make a true bid for power and hold it as long as possible. Now, Risai was left with a disconcerting feeling of abandonment as well as a good deal of insult on her kings behalf.

"What? She's just going to _leave_?" Risai said, feeling a trifle used and offended. "She invokes your name as her husband to stand next to the throne for decades on end and now that you are wakened she decides it's no longer convenient to have a husband and she's just going to abandon you?"

"A moment ago you wanted her gone, now you're offended she will not stay," Gyousou said, sounding amused.

"Leaving under her own power, and so shortly! It's almost as though she's decided you're somehow not good enough for her!" Risai stated, irritated on her kings behalf. "She's been married to you all this time, the least she could do is actually try to be a wife for once."

"We both know that it was a marriage of necessity, and she wasn't marrying me as a person, she married her will to save Taiki and that alone. The lengths she has gone to to honor her bonds should humble us both."

"I'll be humble when she comes to her senses," Risai replied smartly. "You are a fine king, much too good for her. _She_ should be the one who is humbled. She has been doing this and that saying "my husband, my husband" all these years and now when it comes time to act the part she's... she's..."

"Probably a nervous young woman," Gyousou supplied gently.

Risai looked the other way, abruptly guilty. The main speculation among even her bodyguards was that Yuka was indeed a "flower bud," a "winter blossom," a "drifting snowflake." Her battlemaids thought it was sort of cute that, even in her advanced years, the Royal Consort's cheeks pinkened and she quickly changed the subject when the topic of what went on between the winter furs came up.

"And besides that," Risai pressed. "She's a security risk. There isn't anyone, even myself, who knows the ins and outs of the imperial court as she does. If there is a single piece of gossip about the least of the palace staff or administration that she is not aware of then it isn't worth knowing. If she takes this information to another kingdom-"

"It won't do a whole lot of good there," Gyousou replied, unconcerned. "Unless a kingdom is failing and Youma are crawling everywhere, which, sadly we cannot really deny at this point, the affairs and going's on of other royal kingdoms are of little concern to outsiders. I doubt very much that a foreign court will be much interested in the inner workings of Hakkei Palace or of the other province's in Tai."

"Well what about her new gems? She's the only one who knows how the seed-gem was made and she's the only one with the master seed. If she leaves with it, there goes our trade in them."

"Tai is not solely dependent on those new gems," Gyousou pointed out. "We have managed fine for centuries without them, and the supposed income we will bring with them is currently merely speculation."

"Well what about-"

"I'm not going to keep the girl here against her will," Gyousou said firmly, forestalling any further argument with a hand. "She's more than earned her freedom and has every right to it. When she has fulfilled her part in my plans, she will be free to go if she wishes. I owe her that much at least."

Risai said nothing more on the matter since her king had firmly closed the subject, however she could not help thinking privately

_:It just doesn't seem right. His majesty is __**ten**__ times her worth, she should recognize that fact and not act like her connection with him is such a burden. She should love him as much as all of us in Hakkei Palace do. It's impossible to believe she doesn't feel anything for him at all, especially after she's spent time talking to him. I can't imagine that. It's not __**right**__.:_


	17. Gutta Cavat Lapidem

**Gutta Cavat Lapidem (a water drop hollows a stone)**

**_Notes: A drop of water hollows a stone, not by force but by falling often, is the actual phrase._**

_:I begin to see why he is a man respected by both his enemies and his allies,:_ Yuka thought to herself as she walked into her private apartments and closed the japanese-style doors behind her, signalling that she wanted to be alone... though with her and her high-security lifestyle "alone was always a relative term.

Yuka had always privately thought that the unconscious king of Tai couldn't possibly be everything that the people of his court remembered. She'd studied him as far as she was able, trying to get a handle on what he might be like; she'd read up on him, studied the scrolls and observed what changes he had made when he'd taken the throne. She'd also adroitly steered the topic to what Gyousou Saku had been like with several people of the court she trusted would be honest with her on the matter, ally and rival alike. She'd gotten an earful. His allies remembered him as a man of great character, great insight and firm action, whose presence filled the room even when he was the only one in it. Even people who had not necessarily liked him all that well admitted that being in the same room with him was a lot like feasting at the table with a hungry tiger. Yuka was accustomed to kings being more like... Shouryuu, the smarmy and insouciant King of En, and her old schoolmate Youko, who had a more gentle and restrained presence rather than one that took command of a room. The King of Tai, she now saw, was not like either of them.

The Royal En had a lackadaisical nature, as though he never tried hard at anything, his rule remained solid and well-run due to his incredible insight and intelligence. The Royal Kei was characterized by her restraint and even-handedness, she listened carefully to all sides of an argument, took counsel, investigated a matter thoroughly, and then when she felt she had all of the information she needed, consulted her kirin and came to a decision. Hers was a "water rule" (despite all of the allusions to fire in her name) she was placid and gentle until circumstances required she move, then... oh then, she was as implacable as a river in full flood, unyielding and unstoppable until her course was run. For most of the time Youko ruled however, her rule was gentle and she and her kirin both preferred it that way. The Royal Tai however...

_:He's scary!:_ Yuka thought to herself.

It wasn't that he had a threatening demeanor, it was just that... he had a _powerful_ presence. He didn't go out of his way to display ferocity and she had yet to see even the mildest display of violence from him, his conversations with her so far had been gentle and civil, however...

_:A tiger might deign to grace a hut, but that does not mean that it is not a tiger.:_

She'd come close to him before and thought that her inability to be comfortable in his presence might just have been her sense of rivalry rearing its head, or even her inexperience with men being closer to her than a respectful distance, but after having to lock gazes with him Yuka now saw that it wasn't just her... the man had an aura about him that occupied the very air in the room, pressing against everything in it like the heat from the sun at midday. It wasn't even a conscious gesture on his part, he just had a natural force of personality, a latent fierce and commanding aura that was like a tiger with its claws sheathed.

_:It's like how C.S. Lewis referred to Aslan, "he'll never be a tame lion":_ Yuka thought.

So far as Yuka was concerned, the lion could go ahead and have his court, and she would have the evening off!

_:With Taiki's king finally taking his place back on the throne, I don't even have to attend court!:_ Yuka thought, slipping out of the beautiful clothes she had worn to impress the emperor of Han. The outfit was comfortable but she didn't want to get wrinkles in it or chance spilling something on her good clothes, she chose instead a very simple ruqun for her to be comfortable in and lounge around.

For the last fifty years, it had been she and Taiki, sitting on either side of the empty throne, who had lead the court in the absence of Tai's rightful king. They had led the court together, making decisions and trying as best as they could with their limited powers to keep the land peaceful and prosperous. It had been a struggle, one that had sometimes strained the bond of their friendship, but they had seen it through together and Yuka felt their relationship was special for it. But it was all over now.

_:Well, __**my**__ part in it is over with now, anyway,:_ Yuka thought. _:Taiki will still be expected to attend court as Taiho.:_

Even though she was glad that her part in running the patched together political piranha-tank that the Royal Court had been during the time Gyousou Saku had been asleep, part of her couldn't help but worry a little.

:_What if Taiki forgets about me?:_

She was going to be stepping back, probably even leaving for a little while, and his king was finally awake too. Yuka couldn't help but fear that now that he no longer needed her there, she wouldn't be important to him anymore.

_:He has his king to worry about now after all, and I've never been quite as important as he is to Taiki anyway.:_

Yuka knew she was being silly. It was a kirin's nature to adore the one that Heaven had chosen for them. And it wasn't like she was in competition for the number one ranking in Taiki's heart, that position could only belong to his liege anyway so it was silly to worry about it. Still, she couldn't help feeling competitive with someone now. Even if Taiki had been worried about Gyousou while he slept, Yuka had been the one who was by his side, helping him, every day. During that time, she could afford to discount her rival because he was not an active part of Taiki's life. Now that he was awake, Yuka felt very much supplanted.

_:He's not even awake for a week, and he's already making Taiki worry!:_ Yuka thought about the new king.

So far, she failed to be impressed. Then again, that was mostly because she was partly _looking_ to find fault with her rival. It was a little petty, but sometimes in personal matters Yuka could be just a little petty. Despite her relief at having him wake up so that he could take up the burden of state again, she was actively looking for reason's to dislike him. She was a little bit jealous that, despite her long relationship with Taiki, that man would always rank higher in her dear friend's heart.

_:If he makes Taiki cry, I won't forgive him!:_ Yuka promised herself. _:And he had better be the best ruler this world has ever seen, too. I didn't work my ass off for decades to hand everything over to some useless slacker!:_

She had no cause for complaints yet, but that didn't mean that she thought he was the paragon of virtue that everyone else thought he was. She would step into the background and see how he did (not that she had much choice in the matter).

_:Yeah sure, I __**say**__ things like that but...:_ she trailed off.

Even in her own thoughts, she found herself unusually unsettled. In all matters, Yuka was accustomed to knowing what she wanted and then pursuing that thing unreservedly. She was accustomed to being decisive and unhesitating and one-hundred percent certain of herself (even when she was wrong). She had had her own innate ruthlessness pointed out to her at a young age so she knew to be wary of it. Her innate ruthless ambition served her well in the cutthroat politics of the current court but she never allowed herself to forget that it was a blade that could far more easily slice open her own throat.

_:Which is precisely why I must firmly step aside right now,:_ she told herself.

Yuka very much wanted to attend the court that evening. She wanted to be sitting there in her usual spot beside and to the fore of the dais where the throne usually sat unoccupied, and she wanted to be able to see the looks on the faces of the Shuukou and ministers who had troubled her for so long when those pearl blinds were raised all the way for the first time in fifty years and the real king sat down on the throne.

_:I know it's petty, but I __**really**__ want to see the looks on their faces!:_ Yuka thought with relishing amusement.

But it was because she knew she could sometimes be petty and a little ruthless that Yuka felt it was best she step aside firmly right then. She had done what she said she'd do, she had helped Taiki hold the throne together until his king could climb back on it. Her part was done, if she lingered any longer beyond what she had said she would do, then the ministers and officials would have cause to be able to call her grasping and power-hungry.

_:And aside of all of that... there's still one other thing.:_

In the grand scheme of things it truly was a trifle. It was something that most people would be surprised to hear her worry about, but Yuka was who she was, and she couldn't really help it, so it seemed to her that it would be best to avoid the matter entirely.

She didn't want to lower her head to the floor.

_:I know it's stupid!:_ Yuka thought to herself, a little embarrassed. _:But I can't help it.:_

She'd been able to avoid having to touch her head to the floor because she and Taiki had been the two most powerful figures in the room, people had bowed to them and not the other way around. If she went down to the court she would naturally be expected to lower her head to the nation's king. Yuka was too uncomfortable with the idea for a lot of reasons. It felt unnatural to her. In the culture of her times, one only lowered their head all the way when they'd done something unforgivable. Plus... She had lowered herself that way once to a kingdom's ruler. She had bowed down to the king of Kou, believing in him, and he had fed her lies. Yuka never wanted to find herself like that again, it was still a small wound that hurt her. She intended to avoid all official functions until she could leave.

To that end, Yuka, for the first time in a long time, dressed herself in comfortable lounging clothes instead of garments for show, and prepared herself for a quiet evening spent within her quarters. She might at last get to read a good book, instead of reviewing documents for the running of the kingdom.

She had just settled in on a comfortable chaise in her sitting room, one of her favorite books in her hand and a pot of tea at her elbow, when there came a firm knock at the door to her apartments. Yuka was disinclined to receive guests, but the soft rattle of her door being opened and that fact that her room maid was bowed all the way down with her forehead touching the floor said that her visitor was not someone who could be ignored even with the instructions that Yuka not be disturbed.

"Taiki says that you will not come with us to court," a voice that was becoming more familiar to her the longer she heard it said from the entrance to her private sitting room. Completely unexpectedly, her stomach did some sort of strange squirming, fluttery thing at the sound of his voice, and Yuka frowned in puzzlement.

"As you see," Yuka said, holding up her book. "I'm afraid I have plans for the evening."

"That's surprising," he replied. "I would have thought you would want to be there to see it all for yourself. Your enemies are due to be humbled."

"All things considered, I don't think that would be wise. After all, they do make a habit of saying I'm only interested in power. If I show my face there while you're on the throne they'll have more ammunition."

"Without your presence while I chastise them my attempt to teach them humility will be incomplete," he replied. "They won't reflect properly. And besides that, if you disappear from court now, it will only cause a rumor to spread that _you_ are the one being punished. I am sure you grasp that your opponents would be quick to start such a rumor, and it would be ungracious of me to allow such a thing after all you've done."

"I... That is..." Yuka said uncomfortably.

He did have a point, but Yuka couldn't bring herself to state her _real_ objection to going down to court with him and Taiki. She was deeply discomfited with the thought of the full bow that would be expected of her, but she felt it would be out of place for her to say so. She had not bowed down like that since the whole mess with the former ruler of Kou fifty years ago when she'd been a little girl, but it still stung even in the present. It seemed that Taiki's king was as discerning as he was reported to be, for he seemed to sense her discomfort immediately. He sat down on the edge of her chaise, bringing him closer to her than any man had been allowed to be within five decades. Yuka froze up. That close to her she could _feel_ his presence near her, as strong as sunlight against her skin.

"Tell me the real matter," he said softly.

It was a request, but it carried the weight of a soft command. Yuka found herself too embarrassed to look at at him. He waited patiently. She suddenly felt more like she was a shy, awkward fifteen year old again, and not a polished politician of fifty years. The sight of her teacup gave her an excuse to retreat behind manners and Yuka grasped it, much the same way a drowning person might grab for driftwood.

"Would you like some tea? I have a blend sent from Hou!"

The calm, unwavering regard of his deep crimson eyes was like an almost physical weight on her, but she forced herself to maintain her calm. He nodded, even as he continued looking at her, and Yuka was able to steady her suddenly agitated nerves with the calming activity of pouring tea.

"This is a strange tea," he remarked on tasting it. "It is... oddly flavored, and the wrong color."

It was red rather than any varied shade of brown or even green. And instead of tasting like any of the usual varieties of tea, whether earthy or spicy or the sharp-pine taste of some of the northern blends, this one tasted both spicy, strong and almost tangy.

"Normally tea leaves require a sub-tropical environment to grow in, and Hou is as far north as we are, but the new queen grows a variety of the tea-plant that is capable of growing in the lower valleys down in Hou. The leaf when it is fresh, I understand has a slightly astringent taste to it, possibly due to the acidic soil. The treatment, the rolling and oxidizing they do to it before they ship it gives it that mildly roasted flavor."

"You sound knowledgeable," he remarked.

"Hou-ou and I have exchanged letters discussing tea. It is something we've found in common," Yuka smiled a little, a tiny genuine dimple appearing.

She had cultivated an unofficial sort of connection with the eccentric, regnant queen of Hou. She was such a strange one and so funny. It was almost as amusing to exchange letters with her as it was to send seichou to Youko.

"When I first came here," she admitted. "The only tea I had had was the prepackaged stuff. I acquired a taste for it, mainly because I'm a terrible lightweight..."

"You are surprisingly small," he agreed.

"I meant that I have no tolerance for alcohol," Yuka corrected him. "Since I couldn't risk getting tipsy in a court that was already looking for ways to rip me apart, I had to default to some other drink. I somehow wound up with a taste for tea, which, when I lived back in the other world I had never really drank much of."

"So, now that we have exchanged pleasantries, will you tell me what is the matter?" Gyousou pressed.

Yuka spared herself a moment by taking a sip of tea, trying to think of something else to say. The king held her with that weighty regard he had for a long moment, then gave a little smile.

"You and Taiki are really alike in some ways," he said softly. "With him, I can always tell when something is bothering him, and have a good way to be able to either guess what it is or coax it out of him."

"You know he doesn't like you to worry about him," Yuka replied.

"Yes, which makes me worry, causing him to worry even more. Thus it has been determined that it's always best to simply have it out in the open. With you, I have no way of guessing what might be on your mind."

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Yuka replied.

Gyousou looked back at her evenly, his silence speaking for him. Yuka found that she couldn't quite look up at him, which was unheard of for her. She'd never before met a person whom she could not meet the eyes of, but there was something about him, some kind of special gravity he had that made the air around him feel heavy and her chest squeeze in on itself. Yuka could only theorize that she must be somehow allergic to him.

"Do you dislike me?" he questioned gently after Yuka maintained her silence.

"That's-! That isn't it..." she said.

She was stammering every bit as bad as Taiki did, when there was something bothering him that he couldn't bring himself to say.

"You are in a very great hurry to leave," he pointed out.

"That's not why I won't go to court with you," Yuka said. "And why do you care so much anyway?"

She had learned that in politics, a good offense could be the best defense.

"You are a singularly important person in my kirin's life and I personally owe you an enormous debt. If there is anything I have said or done that bothers you, I want to know so I can make reparations."

"It's nothing... It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me," Yuka replied reluctantly.

Gyousou again waited patiently. Yuka, for the first time in a very, very long time found herself caving in.

"I have a bit of a hard time talking about it, even after so long a time, but back when I came to this world the first time I wound up... working," she said hesitantly. "For the previous king of Kou. He seemed like a respectable king, even if the sorts of things he told me and that he had me training to do were... not exactly..."

Yuka trailed off, still bothered to this day by the person she had allowed herself to become back then. Even after all she'd accomplished and all the time that passed, she was still deeply ashamed and mortified by it.

"Anyway. Back then, I lowered my head to him, believing that, even if I didn't quite agree with the methods, that the ends he was employing me for would be virtuous ones. They were not. I... cannot... I simply can't bring myself to lower my head like that ever again. In addition... In the world and time I come from, you only bow over like that when you're abasing yourself to deeply ask forgiveness when you've done something so unpardonable that there is no other way to show your abject humility. I've done some things in my life I'm not proud of, but none of them have been after I started working with Taiki. I don't feel that I have done anything to Tai that I need to apologize for."

"Ah," Gyousou said. "Is that what this is all about?"

"That, and I really want an evening off," Yuka replied, looking hopefully at her book.

She'd had the volume for months and hadn't made it much beyond the third chapter!

"I am not so without confidence as a man or a king that I require every forehead around me to touch the floor," he said kindly. "As long as you bow respectfully, there is no need for you to make yourself uncomfortable. You should hurry and change for Court, or you will miss the event."

"What about my book?" Yuka asked plaintively.

"It will still be here when you return," he replied firmly.

Yuka looked at him sharply, suddenly suspicious. He seemed awfully insistent that she attend court with him. Her politicians instincts told her that he had some sort of plan he wanted her involved in and if he attacked publicly, then she would not easily be able to countermand him without losing face.

"Waait a minute," she said, grasping a hand around he elbow to hold him in place as he moved to rise. "What are you planning, and what do I have to do with it?"

Gyousou contrived to look innocent, but now that Yuka was actively engaged, he couldn't fool her. She'd been around court too long and though Gyousou's face was stern, he was no politician and his innate honesty made it relatively easy to read him.

"Spill it!" she commanded after he hesitated. The king looked amused by her asperity and said

"I have half a kingdom to reconquer, and you must know that in that time I will have to leave Hakkei Palace. Usually under these circumstances, the Taiho is left to manage affairs of state in the absence of the king, however you and I both know that the royal court is not in any shape to be overseen by a kirin."

"Yeah, they'll walk all over him, sweet boy that he is," Yuka agreed resignedly.

"Which is why I must reluctantly ask you to remain in place for a little longer, at least until I can bring the northern province's back under my banner."

"You were going to ambush me!" Yuka accused.

"Say instead that I was conscripting the aid of a most loyal citizen," was his unapologetic reply.

"_Who's_ a loyal citizen?! I'm only here for Taiki!" she retorted hotly.

"Which is why you should remain here for a little while longer," Gyousou pointed out. "If you leave and I leave, he will be essentially alone. You wouldn't want that. I certainly don't."

"You're far too used to having things your own way, you tyrant," Yuka shot back.

She took him by the elbow and pushed him toward the door. When she reached it, she shoved him across the threshold and snapped the shoji shut in his face, leaving him on the other side. She heard his question through the paper screen.

"You are coming, are you not?"

"We'll see!" Yuka replied smartly.

_:He's too used to having things his own way, he should have to worry about it for a little bit. The nerve! He wasn't even going to ask me!:_

"You would truly disobey a command from your king?" he said, sounding like he couldn't quite believe it.

"Consider this my way of rebuking you, and repent on it!" Yuka snapped back.

Abruptly, he started to laugh. Even through the wood it was a warm rich sound that did funny things to the backs of her knees.

"I shall reflect on my actions then," he promised her, sounding more amused than sorry.

"Darn right you will," she muttered to herself then went back to her book. Sadly, by the time she got there, her tea was tepid.


	18. Quos Amor Verus Tenuit Tenebit

Quos Amor Verus Tenuit Tenebit (Those whom true love has held, it will go on holding) Chapter Text

The king walked back across the garden that separated his own quarters from the apartments shared by his kirin and the Royal Consort. It was a first for him, certainly; he had just been tossed out of a woman's quarters by the woman in question, and to add admonishment to injury, was then told in no uncertain terms that he was too high-handed to be tolerated and he needed to go and reflect on himself. His innate honesty reminded him that he had indeed planned to ambush her, so there was some justification to her admonishment from her standpoint.

_:It isn't as though I like this situation either...:_ Gyousou thought, a little irritated.

It irked him on a deep, personal level that he had to rely on a stranger with no real loyalty to Tai for aid in restoring peace to his kingdom. He was actually in agreement with her sentiment; she had done her part and should be allowed her rest. It was _his_ job to step up and take command of the throne of Tai.

_:But with a nation so divided, I cannot risk leaving the court in disarray without the necessary strong leadership required to keep it together until I can finish pacifying the countryside,:_ he thought, still irritated by the necessity of it.

_:The fact that I dislike having to rely on her help is probably one reason why I was so high-handed with her just now,:_ he thought with a small sigh.

He had underestimated how canny and perceptive she was. Despite the many fine examples of strong women in his rule, he had developed the bad habit of judging most women he met by the standard of his late wife, Isana, and in many cases, that led to his underestimating beautiful wife of such breif but happy years had been a woman of talent and discernment, more inclined to sweetness of temper than strength of tenacity.

He stepped in through one of the side entrances to Seiden Palace and then into his office where a small portrait of his late wife still hung near his desk. He examined it again and shook his head. He had thought at the time that the artist had captured her well, the soft curve of her cheek, the pale shine of her hair, the somewhat sleepy gaze, as if she alway existed half in and half out of this world, viewing it now he wondered if the artist had truly captured her. Had she always been so pale, or was it just the way the artist had rendered her?

_:But as I recall, my beloved Isana was not a lady of vitality...:_ Gyousou thought reluctantly.

He felt like a traitor to her memory for even thinking it, but he knew deep down in his heart that if Isana had remained alive and then had become Royal Consort on his ascension to the throne, there was no way that Tai would have survived. She had been a good, warm and elegant woman but...

Gyousou remembered fondly her sweetness, her gentleness and her giving softness. She had been almost as soft hearted as a kirin. He had never heard a harsh word or a cross look from her. Her softness had always seemed to round out his sharp edges. When she had been in the room he knew that people had not found him to be so intimidating as they generally did, for her innate goodness put people at ease. Their marriage had been a harmonious one. There were those who said she often yielded to him too much, and in many ways he could not deny that, but her own softness had only increased his devotion to her. The only thing that had marred those days had been the fact that, as a General, he had been called away from her side so much. In that case, Isana had lacked the resignation to be a soldiers wife; she had always begged him not to leave her. Even now it was hard to recall how she had tearfully asked him to stay and take care of her, to protect her instead of Tai. To this day, he felt guilty that he had not been able to be there when she needed him.

_:And Taiki. I was away when he needed me too. It sometime seems that all I do to protect those I love just ends up making them more vulnerable.:_

That was part of the reason why keeping the girl in place for a little longer seemed suddenly important to him. There was no denying that he had to march north, there was also no denying that the royal court still had its share of traitors and enemies. He could not leave Taiki in such a vulnerable position, not again. Yuka didn't _look_ like much all told; she was small, and slight but that woman had held the throne together against near-impossible odds and almost insurmountable difficulties... surely a few months more, backed by the very real threat of official reprisal should any in the court offer her harm, would be no great difficulty for her.

_:She may even __**like**__ it,:_ Gyousou thought with a small wince.

She had not wanted to bow her head to anyone, not even him, and at the time it seemed like a small concession to make, so he had granted it, and then she'd still rebuked him for not asking her first.

_:But most likely she views them as two separate issues,:_ he admitted._ :Which in essence I suppose they are. It seems that Lady Yuka is not someone who can be judged by the same standards as my former wife Isana.:_

They were apples and pomegranates. Yes, both of them were fruit, but so different were their natures that there their similarities ended. Isana had been of a soft and yielding femininity, Yuka only gave off the _appearance_ of being soft, but was truly as unbending as a sword of finest steel beneath that act of sweet femininity she used to lure the unsuspecting off their guard. It seemed strange and slightly treasonous to compare the two women, even in the privacy of his own thoughts. He had thought that for all the rest of his life he would never find another woman to compare to his wife's memory in his heart.

He had just met the girl a few days ago and already she'd found ways to get under his skin, and it irritated him even more that she didn't seem to care in the least that she was there at all. She conversed politely enough with him, helped out where she felt she was needed, but made it abundantly clear that she had no intention of sticking around once her duty to help Taiki was done. He had even been privately in agreement (just a little) with Risai's indignant reaction over the fact that the Royal Consort had plans to abandon her post at the very earliest opportunity.

:I can't truly blame her, she's worked hard. At the same time... it stings,: he admitted to himself.

The office was too small for pacing so he removed himself from it to the room down the hall a little. The old king had used it for entertainment, which he had done a great deal of. It was large enough to support a full complement of musicians, there was a wide space for formal dance all to the fore of a long table. Gyousou had not found much in the way of real use for the room so when he had taken the throne it was one of the ones he had ordered closed off. When he turned to step into it, he paused at the threshold, frozen in surprise.

:This palace had remained untouched and unchanged for many centuries, I sleep for a few decades and they change everything!: he marveled to himself at the sight that greeted him.

The room that now greeted him had been made to look like a deep forest grotto had formed somehow in the depths of a cave. The ceiling had been made to look like it was frmed of natural rock with holes in it to let the light shine in (to keep the plants alive). The sunlight filtered through the weeping trees that drooped their leafy branches into a series of small pools with lotus flowers covering much of the surface. Interspersed through the artistically grown and arranged gardens were small galeries of artwork, paintings and drawings that seemed to grow organically out of the miniature indoor wilderness.

_:The old kings gaudy monstrosities in the pavilions would have cost a hundred times more to build and were not half so lovely to look at,:_ Gyousou thought to himself.

His gaze was caught by a painting that looked so real, so life-like it was almost like looking through a window. It was a picture of the wide front steps of the palace, (he could tell it was that place in particular because the slanted middle pannels with it's bas-relif dragons carved out of the marble and inlaid in gold and precious gems was depicted in startling detail in the background). Soft daylight shone down on the scene, picking out the colors of clothes and jewels and making the people depicted in the frame seem to glow with inner luminance. In it, the girl was dressed in the finest multi-layered daxiushan. The zhongyi, or under-robe, was sleeveless sort that was tied under the breasts with a narrow gold ribbon. The skirt was unusual in that the color in it lightened from pale white-gold at "collar," which was a band just above her breasts to dark bronze at the bottom hem, as though it had soaked up water. The shenyi she wore over it was a sheer white-gold color with gold embroidery. She wore minimal jewelry besides a small ceremonial head-peice and hairpins that glinted in the light and a polite smile on her face that was as serene as a depiction of the the Seioubo. She was bowing as if she were a demure housewife welcoming a visitor to her home. The foreground showed the backs of four province lords wearing full armor, presumably having brought their armies with them. In the background further up the steps was a feasting table arrayed with four places. He had heard the scene mentioned briefly in a report earlier. The picture of it said _far_ more.

_:It must have taken such strength, to treat ones enemies as though they were conferring a favor by their visit, to trust in ones patience and intelligence and endure it because there are no other options open until you make an opportunity for yourself.:_ he thought, gazing at this scene from the history he had missed while sleeping, and wondering to himself what it must have been like to be part of it.

Gyousou would have met them with a sword, rather than a smile, but he was accustomed to leading armies. Taiki had depicted very clearly that armies were not something that they'd had at the time. To handle an insurrection like this took a will that would put swords to shame.

:The appearance of softness, but not soft at all, unless one counts the fact that she let Asen live.:

The picture beside it was a rougher charcoal drawing of those same four lords and the Lady Yuka later. Three of them were dead on the floor and the artist had chosen to capture her mid-kill-strike on the last.

Gyousou paced around a bit more, looking at the other pictures hung in the gallery. Many of them were of him and it wasn't until he saw a portrait of himself done on mt Hou shortly before he ascended the throne that he realized that the painter must be Taiki.

"Truly, he is a wonderful kirin," Gyousou mused as he examined the incredible detail on one of the paintings more closely. "I have never heard of any other kingdom's kirin being so talented."

And he had tamed a toutetsu as well. If any kirin would have been able to hold the throne together, it was the legendary koki, the black kirin. However, Taiki's great strength and talent was weighted by his lack of confidence in himself and his propensity for caring too deeply what others thought about him. Isana had had much the same difficulties, she had been so devoted to others around her that she always put their opinions above her own. Her softness and empathy had been part of her appeal, but Gyousou had often had to help her out of near-crippling bouts of depression. With her frail beauty and fragile strength, Isana had come to embody everything he desired to be strong enough to protect.

_:Instead I let her down, just as I let Taiki down, and everyone,:_ he thought. His emotions were bordering on uncharacteristic moroseness for him, but seeing a moment of all that he had missed captured in almost living clarity for him had served to truly bring to his attention just how very much he had _missed_ in the time he'd been bound in slumber. Fifty years and a kingdom had all but moved on without him, it seemed.

He wasn't even certain he could ever be able to make up for his failures. Even if he had fought him then, Gyousou had _still_ allowed a man like Asen to ruin his kingdom. He had failed in that, just as he had failed to protect Taiki and his wife.

He had loved her dearly, and he knew that she had loved him, but he now wondered if their love would have been enough to make it through his being chosen to be king. She had been a truly wonderful and giving woman, but there was no doubt that she had been frail. Her fragility could not have withstood the pressures that being Royal Consort would have put on her. The mess that Asen had left would have shattered her, for she had relied greatly on his strength to help her endure; if Gyousou had not been there for her there would have been nothing left to wake up to.

He looked down again at the two pictures of how the Lady Yuka had handled four troublesome warlords walking into her castle and refusing to leave. Isana would have hidden herself in her room. Certainly she would have lacked the strength to rule beside Taiki, to prop up the throne until the day her husband could reawaken. The fact that he knew this, simply saddened him further. It was bad enough that Yuka was necessary at all, it was even _worse,_ in his mind, that she was precisely the Royal Consort that Tai had needed, instead of the giving tenderness of his former beloved.

_:In a different time and a different place, Isana would have been the model of a Royal Consort, held up to all as a fine example of what a woman should be. But I suppose, in her own way, the Lady Yuka is as fine an example as Isana might have been.:_

She was more along the lines of a strong right arm, but right then, she was what was needed. Gyousou would heal this kingdom and redeem himself. He would allow no other outcome save that one. Until that day, he would use whatever tools or weapons came to hand, however reluctant they might be.


End file.
